


wonderful unknown

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Domestic Bliss, F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic, a pinch of angst but really it's all fluff, set during yes men, ward is mentioned....like twice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-03 13:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: “The familiarity of the voice makes Fitz’s heart leap. Simmons.He exhales, his relief almost dizzying. Simmons is here. Simmons will know what is going on. She will know where he is and what has happened. She will know who these children are, and hopefully how to remove them from his bed. Fitz feels every muscle in his body relax. Simmons is here.‘They’re with me!’ he shouts.More footsteps, this time coming up a flight of stairs, but when their owner appears in the doorway Fitz just about forgets that he had ever felt relieved, because the woman standing in front of him is not Simmons. Or at least, she is not the Simmons he had left behind.”In which Fitz gets knocked out and discovers just how powerful desire can be. A season one/future AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so shay prompted me this in january and i only got round to writing it a month ago. initially it was supposed to be a very short one shot but as time went on i kept expanding it in my head and so by the time i sat down to write it i had at least five chapters outlined and eventually had to add two more!
> 
> this is heavily inspired by three wonderful fics:[No Time Like the Present](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14709185) by @Gort, [The Sleeping Beauty Curse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15383448/chapters/35700573) by @LibbyWeasley, and [A Little Holiday Magic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17299205) by @itsavolcano. thank you all so much for writing and sharing them!
> 
> the title comes from ingrid michaelson's song of the same name. baby girl fs is named for eva, baby boy for HRH. i'm on tumblr @jeemmasimmons and open for prompts!
> 
> hope you enjoy this!

_The Bus, 2013_

‘How do you suppose it works?’

Fitz is tinkering with the golden collar Coulson had given him to work on when he asks the question. He looks to Simmons, who is testing yet another sample of Skye’s blood on the other side of the lab. She shrugs her shoulders.

‘Well, if Lorelei’s powers come from her voice then I imagine it functions as a sort of muzzle, like a scold’s bridle. Or maybe it’s a muffler for her sound waves…’

‘No, I’m not talking about the collar.’ Fitz drops his soldering iron onto the bench. ‘I can see how the collar works and you’re right: it’s some kind of attenuator, reducing the power of her voice.’

Jemma nods, and pulls off the light blue gloves they always used to handle biological material. ‘Then what were you talking about?’

‘Lorelei’s powers.’ As Jemma joins him, peering down at the golden band Lady Sif had brought down from Asgard to catch her wayward charge, Fitz tries to take comfort from the press of her shoulder against his own. ‘How do you think she does it?’

He supposes that, by this point, the news that a powerful alien sorceress with dangerous seduction skills was on the loose shouldn’t be too worrying to him. After all, their team has encountered far worse before and always found a solution. This kind of thing was all in a day’s work for them at this point.

But to hear that this woman had commandeered Ward – Agent Ward, the most tight-lipped, focused, no-nonsense agent Fitz had ever met apart from May – and had him whisk her off to Vegas on the back of a stolen motorcycle is making him feel rather uneasy. He hopes that hearing Jemma speculate about the science behind the magic will help to reduce his growing anxiety.

‘Coulson said she becomes the embodiment of all her victims’ desires,’ Jemma muses, fingering the gold collar. Bending closer to inspect where he has fixed it, her hair brushes the skin above his shirt collar. ‘I suppose the most likely possibility is that she acts as a kind of advanced stimulant to them, encouraging the production of testosterone and phenylethylamine. As the source of that stimulation, the men become attached to her and willing to do her bidding.’

Fitz snorts. ‘You think that’s all there is to it? That she can become everything a man has ever wanted just by speaking to him?’ He shoots her a scornful look. ‘What if her victim doesn’t _know_ what he wants?’

Jemma is still examining the collar, running her finger around the inside of the metal. ‘Desire is a very powerful emotion, Fitz,’ she says. ‘Whether we realise we have it or not.’

Feeling his forehead pucker into a frown, Fitz watches her. Under the harsh lights of the lab, her skin looks even paler than usual. He knows that she hasn’t been sleeping well since the Guesthouse, rising every hour or so to check on Skye, and decides that tonight he will offer to take on that duty instead. Maybe if she was able to sleep through the night she’d get some colour back in her cheeks.

As though she can feel his eyes on her, Jemma looks to him in bemusement. ‘Everything alright?’

Fitz nods, feeling the blush rise in his cheeks at being caught in the act. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘fine.’

Abruptly, he stands, and takes the collar back from her.

‘It’s almost done now,’ he explains, turning away from the bench to his metalworking station and reaching for his goggles. ‘I only need to buff up the metal and then it ought to be ready for Lady Sif once she and Coulson and May get back. Hopefully, then they’ll be able to take Lorelei down before she had the time to know anyone else’s deepest, darkest desires.’

‘Hmm.’ He hears Jemma murmur her agreement. Then, she hesitates. ‘Fitz?’

For some reason, he doesn’t want to turn back to face her. ‘Yeah?’

Jemma sighs, and Fitz feels her hand rest, fleetingly, on his shoulder. ‘I’m going to sit with Skye for a while,’ she says. ‘Just…be careful.’

Fitz grunts in response. ‘I’ll keep watch, Simmons,’ he mumbles, already intent on polishing up the collar’s remaining scratches. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

He listens to her footsteps recede into the back of the Bus, then turns his attention back to the strip of alien metal in front of him. Hardly five minutes pass before he is completely immersed in his work. He is so highly focused that, when the cargo ramp lowers, he doesn’t register that two people have boarded the plane until they are right behind him and there is a hand that isn’t Jemma’s touching him, sweetly, on the shoulder.

Less than an hour later, Fitz is on his knees outside the Cage, crouching beside the control panel, as the Bus starts to take off. He barely registers the change in altitude though, as he is too engrossed in working out why the system override had been initiated and how he could stop it to take note of his surroundings. In fact, it is only when he catches sight of a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and hears a soft gasp that he manages to tear his eyes away from his work and look up.

Fitz freezes, one hand still at the control panel, feeling remarkably like a child who has been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

‘Simmons,’ he says.

Standing in the doorframe, Jemma is staring at him, wide-eyed. For a singular moment, Fitz’s mind clears, and he forgets everything that has led him to be kneeling here on the Bus carpet with a tablet in his hand and two Asgardians locked in the Cage. He forgets everything, and can only stare back at her.

But then Jemma turns sharply to run back the way she had come, and the fog descends again. Everything comes back to Fitz in a rush: Lorelei, smiling kindly at him with her hand caressing his shoulder. Ward, calmly explaining a plan that sounded like the most natural idea in the world, and one he was delighted to take part in. Lady Sif, who he had successfully trapped in the Cage, securing her sword for Lorelei. Skye and Simmons, who he had _thought_ he’d locked into the med pod where they couldn’t cause any trouble.

Except now, Simmons had escaped. And that could put the entire plan in jeopardy.

Quick as a flash, Fitz scrabbles to his feet. ‘Hey!’ he yelps, rounding the corner after her, ‘you’re not supposed to be up here!’

He tears across the Bus living space, yelling out a warning to Ward as he goes. Ward seems to have problems of his own though; as Fitz passes him he sees May aim a kick at his chest. So it is going to be up to him to make sure Simmons is secure.

He catches sight of her ponytail disappearing down the staircase to the hanger and gives chase. Inside his chest, Fitz’s heart is pounding. He had thought he had been so clever, so careful, trapping the girls in the med pod. Not only would they be able to _do_ no harm from in there, but they would also _come_ to no harm. They would be safe, and Lorelei’s plan could be fulfilled, no problem.

But now that Simmons was out…

The metal stairs shudder as Fitz takes them two at a time. Now, not only was the plan endangered, but so was she.

‘You’d better get back here, Simmons,’ he insists, reaching the hanger floor and seeing her standing next to the glass doors of the lab. As he jumps off the last stair, he sees the grim determination in her eyes and shakes his head. ‘You cannot be running about, okay?’ he attempts to reason with her as he strides across the hanger. ‘Lorelei doesn’t want any-‘

‘Fitz.’

Fitz may be under an Asgardian enchantment, cast by a beguiling, eons-old sorceress intent on taking over the planet, but he is still a SHIELD agent. At the sound of his commanding officer’s voice, he instinctively turns towards Coulson.

‘Sir?’

The punch is swift, sharp, and utterly unexpected. Coulson’s fist catches him right in the middle of his face and sends him sprawling to the ground. The back of Fitz’s head hits the hard metal of the hanger floor as all the breath is knocked from his body.

The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is Jemma’s face, peering down at him with a peculiar expression of exasperation and…

_Perthshire, 2026_

Fitz’s eyes snap open.

For a moment, he can only lie still, breathing quietly through his nose as he takes in his surroundings. He is lying in bed, but it is not his narrow bunk on the Bus. This bed is far larger, a comfortable double with a black cast-iron frame and golden bed knobs. He is covered with a soft, downy duvet striped in blue and white and behind his head are two fluffy pillows. The room the bed is in is bright and airy, with a door to his right and a window to his left. The window’s curtains are pattered with the same blue and white stripes as the duvet cover, and beyond them Fitz can see green fields and blue sky.

The realisation dawns on him quite suddenly that he is most definitely no longer on the Bus.

Wherever he is though, he must be freed from Lorelei’s enchantment. Remembering that he had been helping her – had tried to trap his friends for her – incites in Fitz a feeling of absolute disgust, both that he had been susceptible to her charms after all and that he was capable of such underhand tricks. But the last thing he remembers is Coulson knocking him out in the hanger. How had he ended up here?

Alarm surges in Fitz’s stomach as it occurs to him that his team might have lost the fight. Maybe Lorelei has taken him to a hotel, like she did with Ward, and is holding him hostage. He groans inwardly. Skye and Simmons would never let him live _that_ down.

But the longer Fitz is awake and the more he looks around the room, he realises that this is unlikely. For one thing, this room is not a hotel room. It is deeply personal, with framed photographs on the chest of drawers at the end of the bed that he can’t quite make out and piles of clothes on the chair underneath the window. Peering closer, Fitz can make out a pair of jeans, a deep green jumper, and a pair of trainers that look to be about his size.

The second and more powerful clue that he has not been kidnapped is the sense of calm he can feel emanating from the room. The sunlight streaming in from the open window fills it with a genuine warmth unmatched by any central heating system, and there is a smell of lavender and something sweeter to the sheets that is tantalisingly familiar. Though he cannot understand why, Fitz feels safe here. It almost feels like home.

His mind is already impatient for answers, but Fitz forces himself to exhale slowly. _First things first_.

He takes a mental inventory, flexing each of his limbs in turn and curling every one of his fingers and toes. All, thankfully, are present and correct.

Then, he reaches one hand out of the duvet and tentatively pats his face where Coulson had hit him but finds no tenderness, no bruise. This is more worrying. Given how hard he remembers the punch being, it ought to still be sensitive to touch. Simmons had always said he bruised like a peach. Fitz feels a fresh wave of worry. How long had he been out?

He is about to push back the covers and take a closer look out the window to discern where he is when a curious noise stops him in his tracks. He hadn’t noticed it before, but from under the bed is coming a gentle breathing sound, alerting him to the fact that he might not be alone in the room. As he listens, Fitz hears the pad of skin against carpet as the breathing gets nearer and nearer.

Apprehensively, he turns his head to his left and finds himself face to face with a little boy of about five or six years old, who must have been hiding under the bed.

‘Um,’ Fitz says. ‘Hi.’

The boy observes him, still breathing heavily through his mouth. He has light brown hair with a slight curl to it that, when he tilts his head to one side and it catches the sunlight, shines copper. His eyes are a deep hazel and peer curiously out at Fitz from a pair of blue glasses, sitting slightly lopsided on his nose.

‘Are you awake?’ he asks eventually.

‘Um,’ Fitz says again, and then, because he has never seen the point in lying to small children, adds, ‘yes. I suppose I am.’

Clearly, this is the right answer. The boy’s face breaks into a broad grin, and Fitz sees that he is missing his two front teeth as he sucks in a deep breath.

‘LilaaaAAH!’ he bellows. ‘HE’S AWAAAAAKE!’

From outside the bedroom, Fitz hears the patter of another pair of small footsteps and turns his head back towards the door just in time to watch it fly open. A little girl, maybe three years or so younger than the boy, hurtles into the room. She launches herself, giggling, onto the bed and hauls herself up by grabbing handfuls of the duvet in her tiny fists. Fitz just has the time to scramble into a sitting position before she reaches him, crawling onto his lap and pressing her hands and knees into places he’d really rather she didn’t.

Breathless with exertion and delighted by her success, she beams up at him. Taking hold of his t-shirt, she pulls herself up, so that her little feet are planted firmly on the tops of his thighs. Fitz stares at her, dumbstruck. She is clearly the boy’s sister as they have the same rounded cheeks, freckled skin and auburn hair, but where her brother’s eyes are brown, the girl’s are a bright shade of blue.

‘We go to the park today,’ she tells him, and the way in which she says it tells Fitz that this is neither a question nor a demand. It is simply a statement, and one that she evidently expects him to agree with.

‘Okay,’ Fitz says, dazed. ‘Sure. We’ll go to the park today.’

The little girl rewards him with another smile, and Fitz is surprised to find himself smiling back at her. He wonders, briefly, whether he has escaped one enchantress only to walk right into the clutches of another.

‘Me too!’ The boy has clambered onto the bed to join them, and is standing at Fitz’s toes, jumping up and down. ‘I want to come too!’

Suddenly alarmed that he might tip over the end of the bed and crack his head open, Fitz nods quickly.

‘Yeah, you can come,’ he assures him, eyeing the way he is jumping higher and higher anxiously. ‘Of course you can come.’

The boy grins, and the next time he bounces he falls to his knees, like a cat ready to pounce. On Fitz’s lap, the little girl – Lilah, her brother had called her – does the same, sitting down on him so heavily that Fitz lets out a small groan.

‘Can we get ice cream too?’ the boy asks eagerly, his eyes shining.

‘Ice cream!’ his sister crows, clapping her hands together, and she turns to him with a beseeching expression.

Fitz shakes his head, realising too late that he probably shouldn’t be promising these children anything at all. He is beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. He doesn’t know them, he doesn’t know where they’ve come from, and he certainly doesn’t know why they should be in his room demanding park visits and ice cream from him.

‘Maybe,’ he starts cautiously, ‘we ought to check with your mum before we start thinking about ice cream, yeah?’

The boy’s forehead puckers, and it looks as if he is about to argue when from further within the house someone calls out.

‘Archie? Lilah? What are you doing?’

The familiarity of the voice makes Fitz’s heart leap. _Simmons._

He exhales, his relief almost dizzying. Simmons is here. Simmons will know what is going on. She will know where he is and what has happened. She will know who these children are, and hopefully how to remove them from his bed. Fitz feels every muscle in his body relax. Simmons is here.

‘They’re with me!’ he shouts.

More footsteps, this time coming up a flight of stairs, but when their owner appears in the doorway Fitz just about forgets that he had ever felt relieved, because the woman standing in front of him is not Simmons. Or at least, she is not the Simmons he had left behind.

In one way, there is no denying that this is Jemma Simmons. She has the same colour hair, the same bright eyes, the same nose, same mouth, same voice. She even has the same way of standing, one hand on her hip as she cocks her head to one side. But at the same time, she is different.

She looks at least ten years older to start with, and faint lines crease at the corners of her eyes. Her hair is shorter than Fitz has ever seen it; it just brushes her shoulders in soft waves. Her waist and hips seem a little thicker too, although when he feels his gaze trailing down her body he blushes and pulls it sharply back up again.

The biggest change in Jemma, however, isn’t an outward one. Fitz notices it as she smiles at the children, rolling her eyes fondly. She seems lighter than she has for months, maybe even years. She seems at ease, and comfortable, and _happy_.

‘I thought I told you two,’ she says to the children, ‘to leave Daddy alone!’

Fitz feels his heart skip a beat.

_Daddy?_

He stares at the two children in front of him. Jemma’s words seem to have altered his perception of them, and all of a sudden, he can see what he hadn’t before. The little boy – Archie – has the exact same shape nose as Fitz does himself, and he remembers that Jemma is short-sighted too. The freckles on Lilah’s cheeks also remind him of Jemma, and when she turns her face back towards him looking into her electric blue eyes feels like looking in a mirror.

These children, Fitz realises, belong to him. They belong to him, and to Jemma. His chest tightens, and for a moment he struggles to breathe.

‘But we wanted to see him!’ Archie explains. He pouts. ‘He wasn’t here for bedtime.’

Next to him, Lilah shakes her head. ‘No bedtime kiss,’ she laments.

Over their head, Jemma gives him a secret smile. ‘Daddy was working until very late,’ she tells the children. ‘He wasn’t even home to give _me_ a bedtime kiss!’

The mere idea of giving Jemma a bedtime kiss makes Fitz feel like a kaleidoscope of butterflies has been released into his stomach and he has to suck in a sharp breath.

‘He needed more sleep,’ Jemma continues, turning a stern eye on Archie and Lilah, ‘and you were very naughty to come in and wake him.’

‘I didn’t wake him!’ Archie puffs out his chest indignantly. ‘He was already awake. He told me.’

‘It’s true,’ Fitz admits. ‘I did say I was awake.’

‘Hmm.’ Jemma shakes her head, before lifting her hands in a gesture of surrender with a sigh. ‘In which case, finish saying good morning to Daddy and then head downstairs for breakfast.’

At the mention of food, both children suddenly lose all interest in Fitz and make a beeline for the door. Fitz listens to them clatter down the stairs then turns his attention, heart thumping, back to Jemma.

She is still standing in the doorway, smiling softly at him.

‘Sorry, love,’ she says, and hearing her casual term of endearment is as much of a shock to Fitz as staring his biological children in the face had been. She’d never called him anything but Fitz before. ‘I tried to keep them quiet for longer, but you know what they’re like.’

Fitz opens his mouth, then closes it again. His mouth feels incredibly dry and he licks his lips. ‘Uh, yeah,’ he croaks, ‘I do.’

‘Seeing as you _are_ awake, though,’ Jemma says with a cheeky grin, ‘I don’t suppose you’d be able to come down and help with breakfast? I want to get to work early today.’

‘Uh, sure,’ Fitz hears himself saying. ‘No problem.’

‘Thank you.’ Jemma looks as if she is about to go, but then pauses, eyeing him quizzically. ‘Fitz, is everything alright? You look rather strange.’

Her question, so achingly similar to the last he can remember her asking him, shakes any remnants of doubt that she is not Jemma out of Fitz’s mind. Making a snap decision, he nods at her, and tries to give a reassuring smile.

‘No, everything’s fine. I just, uh…’ He thinks quickly. ‘Didn’t get much sleep. Y’know. After last night.’

Jemma nods back at him, sympathetically. ‘Well, help us get out of the house and you can go straight back to bed.’

‘I’ll be right down,’ Fitz tells her.

Flashing him one last smile, Jemma steps out of the door. Just before she is out of sight, she turns and presses her fingers to her lips, blowing him a kiss. In that moment, the only thing Fitz can think to do is lift up his hand and make a fist to catch it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The house he and Jemma seem to share is a renovated cottage, still with all its authentic features, like the flagstone floor that is cool underneath his bare feet, but suitably modernised for family living. The prime example of this is the large, open-plan cottage kitchen at the back of the house, which Fitz stumbles into to find the children sitting at a pine wood table and Jemma at the stove with her back to him.
> 
> The kitchen is bright and welcoming, with early morning sunshine streaming in from the window above the sink and a radio standing on the sill blaring out pop tunes. The children are munching their breakfast in silence, and when Fitz notices what is on their plates his mouth begins to water and his stomach audibly rumbles. Maybe, he thinks hopefully, his brain had changed tack and decided that Simmons’ scotch pancakes were his real deepest, darkest desire.
> 
> But then Jemma turns to him, and Fitz is struck by the deep love and affection in her eyes."
> 
> Fitz starts to put together the pieces of his future and comes to a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your kind comments on the first chapter!! i love hearing what you think and the parts you like. i hope you enjoy this chapter too :)

As soon as he is sure Jemma is safely downstairs, Fitz pushes back the duvet and jumps out of bed. He is rather perturbed to find he is only wearing a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, but at the moment that is the least of his worries. With his heart pounding in his ears, he hurries out onto the landing in search of a bathroom. After pushing open one door and finding himself in a pink-painted room he can only assume is Lilah’s, he finds one.

Exhaling with relief, Fitz dives inside and locks the door behind him. Then, he turns to the mirror hung above the sink and grips the porcelain bowl tightly as he stares at his reflection.

Like Simmons, his face is lined now too, with creases by the corners of his eyes and mouth. He is also stubbled, a thin layer of it covering his cheeks and upper part of his neck. Fitz brushes his fingers across the bristles in confusion. As he does so, he notices the band of silver on the third finger of his left hand, its smooth metal glinting at him in the light. He blinks, and brings his hand down to ogle at it. So, he thinks in a daze, not only does he have two children with Jemma but apparently they are also married.

The greatest surprise, though, comes when he stands up straight. His shoulders seem to have broadened, and when he flexes his arms and rubs at his chest he finds definition and muscles he has only ever dreamed of before. Fitz cannot help but feel a little bit impressed as he turns himself in profile and his reflection does the same. He may look at least a decade older, but he also looks _good_.

With a shaky sigh, he turns away from the mirror and sinks down onto the edge of the bathtub to sit. He puts his head in his hands and tries to calm his breathing, which is easier said than done. His mind doesn’t seem able to comprehend anything, and is borderline having a breakdown.

Part of him wishes he’d confessed to Jemma when she’d asked him whether something was wrong. Usually, he would jump at the chance to share a problem with Simmons, to listen to her musings out loud and use them to help his brain tick over to find a solution. But what would he have said to her? That he’d been knocked out on the Bus and woken up ten years in the future, married to his best friend and the father of two children?

_Theories_ , Fitz tells himself sternly. He needs theories. Lifting his face, he tries to focus on any of the myriad of ideas that had passed through his mind since he’d first woken up.

He is able to dismiss the theory that this is some elaborate prank even before he has seriously entertained it. Simmons is a weak prankster at the best of times, bless her, and even if she’d roped Skye into this one there was no way they’d be able to fake his physical transformation to such an extent.

His second theory is also easily tested. Taking his thumb and forefinger, Fitz pinches himself, hard, on the soft skin above his elbow.

‘Ow! Mother of-‘

He muffles his curse by pressing the sore spot to his lips and closing his eyes. So, this is not a dream either. Or at least not a dream he can be easily woken from.

It is this thought that leads Fitz neatly on to another, one that makes him sit up straight.

He’d still been under Lorelei’s enchantment when he’d lost consciousness. Maybe what he was experiencing was another manifestation of her powers, a kind of fantasy induced by the excess chemical stimulation in his body.

He remembers the last conversation he’d had with Jemma. _Desire is a very powerful emotion, Fitz,_ she’d said. _Whether we realise we have it or not_. Awake, he had been able to fixate on Lorelei, who had made herself the embodiment of his conscious desires. Now that he was asleep and without that direction, his mind was being allowed to seek out a subconscious desire to revel in instead. Which was…what?

Jemma?

Fitz remembers how, when Coulson had explained Lorelei’s powers to them earlier, he had instinctively turned towards her, seeking her out in the cramped med pod. At the time, he had thought nothing of it. When given new information, he always looked for Simmons, always wanted to gage her opinion on it ready to dissect it together later.

Now though, Fitz has to wonder whether it was quite that simple. He has to wonder whether there is a tiny part of his subconsciousness that desires his best friend.

‘Fitz!’ The sound of Jemma’s voice floats up the stairs, muffled by the closed door. ‘Are you there?’

Fitz sighs again, dropping his head back into his hands. Whatever the hell his brain wants, now isn’t the time to think about it too hard.

‘Yeah,’ he calls back to her. ‘I’m coming!’

Hastily dressing in the pair of jeans from the chair in the bedroom, Fitz makes his way downstairs.

The house he and Jemma seem to share is a renovated cottage, still with all its authentic features, like the flagstone floor that is cool underneath his bare feet, but suitably modernised for family living. The prime example of this is the large, open-plan cottage kitchen at the back of the house, which Fitz stumbles into to find the children sitting at a pine wood table and Jemma at the stove with her back to him.

The kitchen is bright and welcoming, with early morning sunshine streaming in from the window above the sink and a radio standing on the sill blaring out pop tunes. The children are munching their breakfast in silence, and when Fitz notices what is on their plates his mouth begins to water and his stomach audibly rumbles. Maybe, he thinks hopefully, his brain had changed tack and decided that Simmons’ scotch pancakes were his _real_ deepest, darkest desire.

But then Jemma turns to him, and Fitz is struck by the deep love and affection in her eyes.

‘Don’t you worry,’ she says, rolling her eyes good-naturedly at him. ‘I’m making plenty for you too.’ She flips the pancake in the pan and nods towards the table where Lilah is holding hers with both hands and is about to take a bite from its centre. ‘Can you help the little monkey with hers?’

‘Uh, yeah.’

Gingerly, Fitz approaches the table. As an only child and with no cousins living near him and his mum, he has limited experience with children, especially ones this young. The fact that these are his own children makes him no less nervous. He has even less experience with good fatherhood than he does with children.

‘Here,’ he says to Lilah, prising her sticky fingers off the pancake and dropping it onto her plate with a grimace. ‘Let’s cut this up, hmm?’

Taking up a knife, Fitz makes to cut the pancake into strips.

‘ _No_ , Daddy,’ Lilah protests, pushing his hand away from the plate. ‘ _Triangles_.’

‘Tri…?’ Fitz frowns, but when Lilah points to the centre of the pancake and draws her finger outwards, again and again, he understands. ‘Triangles. Right. Of course.’

Carefully, he begins to cut the pancake up like it is a pizza, dividing it into six triangular shaped slices. Lilah beams, letting him know that this was correct, and grabs at the first slice to eat it.

As Jemma slides another pancake onto the stack set in the middle of the table, Fitz takes a seat next to his daughter. He pours her a glass of orange juice and firmly removes the syrup jar from Archie once his entire plate began to shimmer with the thick liquid sugar. He coaxes the boy to try a banana with his pancake instead and grabs a sheet of kitchen roll to wipe the dribble of orange juice threatening to fall onto Lilah’s dress. By the time the children have finished, Fitz can feel the tight knots in his stomach beginning to loosen.

‘To the bathroom,’ Jemma orders, sweeping their empty plates off the table. ‘Archie, make sure Lilah actually cleans her teeth with toothpaste this morning, please.’

Puffing up his chest with importance, Archie hops down from the table and takes his sister’s hand. He ushers her out of the room and Fitz listens out for their footsteps thundering in tandem back up the stairs. Maybe, he thinks, children weren’t so difficult to deal with after all.

He is jolted out of his reverie by a gentle hand on his back as Jemma sets a steaming mug of tea down in front of him with a smile.

‘Here,’ she says softly, sitting down in the chair Lilah has vacated. ‘You still look half asleep!’

Fitz manages a wan smile, lifting the mug to his lips. Fleetingly, he closes his eyes; milk and half a sugar, exactly the way he’s always liked it. Jemma always made it best.

‘Thanks, Simmons,’ he mumbles, setting it back down again.

Opening his eyes again, he sees a flicker of confusion cross Jemma’s face at the use of her surname, but then it passes.

‘You really were quite late last night,’ she says with concern. She reaches across the table and covers his hand with her own. Her fingers are warm from the stove. ‘Mack wasn’t working you too hard, was he?’

Fitz doesn’t know who Mack is, but instinct tells him not to tell tales on him to Simmons. He shakes his head, dumbly.

‘Uh, no. Not too hard at all.’ Taking a risk, he licks his lips and adds, ‘it just took longer than expected.’

Jemma nods, her thumb beginning to caress the back of his hand absently. Fitz stares at their joined hands, feeling a fluttering sensation begin in his chest. They have always been fairly physical in their friendship, always been happier the closer they were in the other’s personal space. But this kind of physical contact, deliberate and coded with affection, is something new entirely. As Jemma’s fingers begin to draw patterns on his skin, Fitz is stunned to find that he rather likes it.

‘He’ll probably be wanting a debrief,’ she says, throwing him a knowing look. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an email waiting for you in the Workshop as we speak.’

Fitz nods at her, hoping that he looks as though he understands what she is talking about. ‘I’ll check,’ he says airily, ‘once you’re all gone.’

Jemma smiles, and reaches up to press her palm, fleetingly, to his cheek. Just as Fitz is about to lean into her touch, she gets to her feet and moves to load the dishwasher, cunningly disguised behind a sage green cabinet that matches the rest of the kitchen units.

‘I won’t expect you to join me at work today,’ she says as she rinses Archie’s plate under the tap. ‘You’ll probably go right back to sleep once we’ve left.’

‘Probably,’ Fitz agrees with her, lifting his fingers to rub the place on his cheek where her hand had been.

‘I won’t tell you where to find food for your lunch. You know where it will be.’

‘Of course,’ he says, feeling his heart sink a little. He doesn’t, but clearly he cannot tell her that.

‘Oh!’ Jemma spins around, a syrup covered spoon in her hand, as she remembers something. ‘And since it’s half term next week, school and nursery are closing at one thirty, rather than three. Will you be okay to pick the kids up early?’

‘Won’t be a problem,’ Fitz replies, as relief floods through him. Thank goodness, he thinks, for half terms. God help his fantasy world self if he’d neglected to collect his children because he hadn’t known he’d needed to.

Remembering the children’s earlier demands, he clears his throat. ‘They, uh, want to go to the park afterwards,’ he ventures, wondering if this plan needs her approval. ‘And Archie wants an ice cream.’

Jemma laughs. ‘Of course he does. There’s no doubting he’s your son.’ She eyes him sternly. ‘Only one scoop before their tea though, Fitz.’

Fitz holds up his hands in surrender. ‘Got it. One scoop only.’

‘And I’ve managed to get the cover at work,’ Jemma adds with a sigh, closing the dishwasher, ‘so we’ll have the whole bank holiday weekend to spend together.’ She flops back onto the chair beside him and smiles happily. ‘As a family.’

She pauses, expectantly, and Fitz realises she is waiting for his reaction. It takes him only a heartbeat to decide what to do.

He is in a house he has never visited before, surrounded by children he has never met. Everything is new, everything is unfamiliar…except for Jemma. She is the one constant between the life he’d had when he’d fallen asleep and this life he has woken up in. She may be ten years older and have his wedding ring on her finger, but she is still his best friend. He still cares about her, and will do anything to keep her happy.

Sucking in a deep breath, Fitz lifts his head and grins back at her.

‘Sounds perfect.’

He helps her to track down the children, stuffing feet into tiny shoes and fastening buckles. Archie comes to him with a red plastic wrist watch and Fitz helps him put it on, before turning to catch the lunch box that is about to fall out of Lilah’s unzipped rucksack.

He follows the three of them out the back door and down the path to a wooden gate at the bottom of the garden that leads out onto a narrow country road. Peering down it, Fitz sees that it leads to the welcome sign to a village. He reads the name and blinks in surprise. They are in Scotland.

‘Say bye-bye to Daddy!’ Jemma sings as she opens the gate.

‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ Archie repeats dutifully, although he appears to be far more intent on investigating how the fastening mechanism of his watch works than giving a sincere goodbye.

Lilah on the other hand skips over to him and flings her arms around his knees. ‘Bye,’ she says, and Fitz just manages to place a hand on her flyaway ginger curls before she is gone too.

‘See you both later,’ he says, before adding ‘at one thirty,’ more as a reminder to himself than to them.

Jemma closes the gate behind them and herds the children onto the grass verge.

‘Bye, love,’ she murmurs, and before Fitz knows what is happening, she is leaning back over the gate to rest one hand on his shoulder and draw him in to kiss her. The kiss is short, hardly lasting longer than a second, but to Fitz it seems to last an age. Jemma’s lips graze his, soft and warm, as her forehead tips slightly against his own. When she pulls away, her hand slips down his shoulder to trail against his chest. ‘See you this afternoon.’

Fitz isn’t entirely sure what he says in response, although he is fairly sure he manages nothing more coherent than ‘uh duh’. Jemma flashes him a wicked grin before taking their children’s hands to lead them down the lane.

Rooted to the spot, Fitz watches until they cross the village boundary and are gone.

He spends the next hour walking in circles around the garden.

It is a very nice garden, with a neat green lawn and wildflower borders along the far wall. The wall itself is covered in pink climbing roses and star-shaped jasmine, their sweet fragrances reaching Fitz at whatever point he is at in the garden. On the patio near the cottage are assorted children’s toys made of brightly coloured plastic, and a row of potted herbs sit underneath the kitchen window.

Fitz, however, takes no notice of any of this. He is far too preoccupied by the fact that Jemma had kissed him. And, even more than that, for a split second he had wanted to kiss her back.

Underneath his feet, he is treading a path in the grass.

He had always known that Jemma was pretty. But it had never been something he’d ever thought too much about, it was simply something he knew about her. It fitted neatly alongside his knowledge that she was smart and brave and that he couldn’t comprehend a life without her.

He’d always been a little annoyed whenever anyone else mentioned it, though, irrationally ticked off that they’d felt the need to voice what was to him an obvious truth. Her ex-boyfriends, strangers on the street, Professor Randolph in Seville...whenever they’d commented on her attractiveness, he’d felt an odd pull in his stomach and an overwhelming desire to glower at them. Can’t you see, he’d wanted to yell, what else is there?

But in spite of all this, not in ten years of friendship had Fitz ever felt the urge to kiss her. In spite of all the hours spent in each other’s company, all the days stood side by side in the lab, it had never occurred to him to pull her face close to his, put his hands on her cheeks, and kiss her. The thought had never even crossed his mind.

Now, walking in aimless circles around their garden with the memory of Jemma’s lips still lingering on his own, Fitz is starting to wonder why the hell not.

It is only when his stomach gives another loud rumble that he stops short. Even if this is some kind of hormone induced dream, apparently he still needs to eat. Abandoning his crop circles, Fitz heads back into the cottage. He will eat a pancake, he tells himself, or maybe two, and then he will go on a fact-finding mission about the house.

Back at the kitchen table, he digs into his pancakes with relish. They are soft and fluffy and melt in his mouth, exactly the way they have always done. Jemma and her excellent pancake recipe, Fitz thinks with a grin. His only constants in every universe. The thought, _what more do I need_ , follows so swiftly afterwards that he doesn’t have the time to stop it.

He swallows hard and pushes his plate away, having suddenly lost his appetite.

After stacking his plate in the dishwasher and cleaning out his mug – Simmons was always a stickler for dishes, he doubts this is any different in his dreamworld – Fitz heads back upstairs to the bedroom to begin his search. There, he shrugs out of the t-shirt he’d woken up in and puts on the green jumper and trainers. Just as he’d expected, they fit perfectly, and the jumper smells of the same lavender scent he now recognises as Jemma’s perfume. Pressing the sleeve to his nose, Fitz inhales deeply.

Examining the framed photographs on the chest of drawers, he is particularly drawn to one showing him and Jemma standing among a group of agents. He recognises May, and Coulson, and Skye, but does not know the three other people in the picture: a tall man with a wide grin, a young woman leaning into his side, and another man, who had apparently blinked as the camera went off and has his eyes partly shut. Squinting at the photo, Fitz frowns and wonders why on earth his subconscious has bothered to invent the faces of such random agents.

The other photographs are of himself, Jemma, and the children, at various different ages and events. They are everywhere, and as he leaves the bedroom Fitz is able to follow a trail of them down the stairs and into the living room. It is a cosy looking room, with soft grey couches and a red rug in front of the fire place. Pictures line the mantel piece, and Fitz approaches to look at them more closely.

Set in a double frame are two photographs appearing to show his and Jemma’s wedding. Swallowing hard, Fitz looks closer, feeling his heart start to thump. As he observes the pictures, he gets the sense that he is playing spot-the-difference with them. Jemma is wearing two different dresses in either photo, and his suit is different colours. In one, Jemma is wearing braids, in the other she has blossoms woven into her hair. The only thing the pictures seem to have in common is the looks of pure bliss on both their faces. It is almost as if, Fitz thinks, puzzled, they had two weddings.

By this point, he is beginning to rethink his earlier theory. Whereas before he had assumed this was a fantasy, created by his brain to satisfy his hormonal changes, now he is starting to doubt that idea. This is too detailed to be just a dream, too complex to only exist inside his head. He doesn’t have enough imagination to have created this world out of nothing.

As he touches his fingertips to a photograph of himself, cradling an impossibly tiny baby Lilah in his arms, Fitz formulates a new hypothesis. Between them, Lorelei’s enchantment and Coulson’s fist have somehow catapulted him into the future.

The rest of the house yields up no further answers, so Fitz decides to move his investigation into the garden. Built against the house is a long outbuilding that might once have been a garage, but when he places his palm to the biometric scanner outside and the doors swing open, he finds a pristine lab instead. Shelves line the walls, filled with equipment and conical flasks, and Fitz recognises most of the technology as being SHIELD issue. He realises that this must be the Workshop Simmons had mentioned.

Moving into the room, he makes for the holotable at its centre, where a holographic envelope is flashing insistently into the air. Reaching out to touch it, Fitz jumps back when the envelope expands to reveal a short email, addressed to him. He reads it quickly.

It is from someone called Mack, thanking him for the day before and, just as Simmons had predicted, asking for a debrief report. He adds that he knows the kids are on holiday now so he, Fitz, is likely to be busier than usual and tells him not to worry about getting it done this week. Next week will be fine.

Breathing out with relief, Fitz closes the email by touching his fingers to the top of the hologram and swiping his hand down. At least this is one less thing for him to worry about.

Under the holotable, he finds what might be the most useful, if also the most boring, source of information yet – a stack of financial records. Hauling them up onto the table, Fitz opens the first folder and begins to read.

The files date from 2019, and from them he gleams that he and Simmons left SHIELD as heads of department around six years ago, which Fitz deduces must have been around the time Archie was born. They had then bought and renovated the cottage, funded by the patents he had made back at the Academy. Fitz blinks seeing the prices his old inventions had sold for; he’d never imagined they could make that much.

Reading on, he learns that the “work” Jemma had mentioned earlier is in fact a café in the village, that they had bought four years ago. Underneath the deed paperwork, Fitz finds a birth certificate printed on peach-coloured paper, with a date only six months later. _Lilah May Fitz-Simmons_ , he reads, and smiles in spite of himself. Of course they would hyphenate.

It takes him a good two hours to sift through the records, uncovering something new about their lives with every page he turns. By the time he reaches the end, Fitz feels like his head is about to burst, both with new information and with everything he still doesn’t know. Facts and figures could only tell him so much, and with every word he has read, he has found himself wanting to discover more and more.

Puffing out his cheeks, Fitz spreads his fingers across the paperwork as if he could reinstate his memories by osmosis. For the first time in hours, he glances up, blinking blearily about the room, and starts when he notices the clock. It is one o’clock, which means he has only half an hour before he is due to collect Archie and Lilah from school.

Cursing, Fitz abandons the records and runs for the door.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks grimly, whether he can remember this life or not. What matters is that Jemma does, that the children do. This is their world, and they are expecting him to be certain things: a husband and a father.

And, as much as that may scare him, Fitz is determined not to let them down.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Along the way, he spots a shopfront painted cherry-red with hanging baskets full of geraniums positioned on either side of the door. Reading the name above the door, Fitz realises that this is Jemma’s café. Taking a step closer, he peers into the window and spots her, chatting to customers and directing the waiting staff to the relevant tables. He watches her laugh, her eyes and nose crinkling up, and feels himself smile too.
> 
> Almost as if she can feel him, Jemma chooses that moment to look up. Catching his eye, she beams, and waves. Feeling his heart lift, Fitz waves back and walks on."
> 
> Spending the afternoon with the children gives Fitz some tricky problems to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit of a shorter chapter, i'm afraid, but with plenty of daddy!fitz to make up for it!

Inside the house, Fitz finds a jacket hanging in the hallway that when he sticks his hand into the pocket yields up an iPhone. Grasping it triumphantly, he prays that his future self hasn’t had the creativity to change the passcode he has used since Sci-Ops.

Originally, it had just been the date of his birthday and Jemma’s, then when Apple demanded a six-digit one he had added the year of their birth as well. Simmons had told him off for this many a time. ‘You’re an engineer,’ she would argue, ‘you know how easy passwords can be to crack!’. He did know, but he had never been able to bring himself to change it either.

Fitz taps in the numbers and breathes out a sign of relief when the phone unlocks. Opening the map app, he searches for primary schools in the village and finds that there is only one, with a nursery attached to it. Well, that certainly made things easier.

Slipping on the jacket, he pockets the phone and finds a set of house keys in the other pocket. After locking up the cottage, Fitz heads out the gate he had waved Jemma and the children out of earlier that morning and turns in the direction of the village.

It is a sunny morning, unusual for this time of year in Scotland, and the warmth on the back of his neck as he walks down the lane is comforting. It takes him about ten minutes to reach the village welcome sign, which is charmingly adorned with pots of flowers. Glancing at his phone to check the map to the school, Fitz makes a left turn down a cobbled road.

Along the way, he spots a shopfront painted cherry-red with hanging baskets full of geraniums positioned on either side of the door. Reading the name above the door, Fitz realises that this is Jemma’s café. Taking a step closer, he peers into the window and spots her, chatting to customers and directing the waiting staff to the relevant tables. He watches her laugh, her eyes and nose crinkling up, and feels himself smile too.

Almost as if she can feel him, Jemma chooses that moment to look up. Catching his eye, she beams, and waves. Feeling his heart lift, Fitz waves back and walks on.

He finds the school easily enough, situated as it is in the middle of the village next to the wide green. Groups of parents are milling around on the steps outside and Fitz joins them, trying to look as though he belongs. After all, as far as they are concerned, he does. The thought is strangely comforting, and it makes him stick his hands in his pockets and lift his head up a little higher.

At one-thirty precisely, the big green doors of the school open and a teacher appears on the top step. Smiling, she scans the faces of the parents in front of her for a moment before turning back and calling a name into the school. One by one, children begin to appear, and hurry down the steps to greet their mum or dad.

Feeling his nerves return, Fitz cranes his neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of Archie or Lilah inside the school, waiting for him. The teacher appears to notice his anxiety and mistakes it for impatience. She nods to him with a smile.

‘Lilah and Archie Fitz-Simmons!’ she calls into the school. ‘Dad’s here for you.’

Fitz has heard his name be coupled with Simmons’ almost every day of his adult life, so much so that it sometimes felt naked to hear it without hers attached. To know that they both now belong to these two small children they’d made together is something else entirely, and makes a plethora of emotions rise up inside him.

Lilah appears on the top step beside the teacher. She looks a bit bedraggled from the morning; her cardigan has slipped off her shoulders and one of her socks has fallen down around her ankle. When she spots him though, her eyes light up and she hurries down the steps to fling herself at him. This time, Fitz is prepared and bends down, bracing himself for impact.

‘Hello,’ he says awkwardly, patting her back as her arms loops around his neck, squeezing tightly. ‘Did you have a good morning?’

The little girl pulls away from him, and nods emphatically. ‘I went in the sandpit,’ she informs him, ‘and in the play house.’

‘Wow,’ Fitz says, because it seems like the thing to say. ‘Sounds exciting.’

‘Yes,’ Lilah agrees. She looks up at him, her blue eyes bright and clear and trusting. ‘And this afternoon,’ she adds, ‘I’m with you.’

A sudden lump appears in Fitz’s throat. He nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

Archie, who had followed Lilah out of the school, now approaches him and shyly hands over a piece of paper, rather crinkled and saturated with colour.

‘Did this for you,’ he explains, as Fitz takes the picture and examines it.

Most of the page is painted blue, with a few dabs of white overlapping the blue which Fitz imagines is supposed to represent clouds. In the centre of the painting is a plane, with long triangular wings, that looks like an enlarged version of the quinnjets. It’s a good picture, if a little soggy still in the middle.

Archie is watching him study the picture, bouncing lightly on his toes as he waits for Fitz’s judgement. Glancing down at the small boy, Fitz notices a smudge of blue paint on his cheek and feels his heart grow two sizes. He kneels down beside him and reaches out his thumb to wipe it off.

‘This,’ he tells Archie gently, ‘is amazing.’

Archie beams. ‘Really?’

‘Oh, yeah!’ Fitz grins back at him. ‘You know, I bet if we take it home, Sim-‘ He catches himself, and quickly corrects his mistake. ‘I bet _Mum_ will hang it on the fridge. Maybe even get it framed.’

Archie chuckles with delight, making Fitz smile. A warm satisfaction creeps into his bones as he realises how easy it is for him to please these children, how eager they are to tell him about their days and hear him respond with enthusiasm. He is filled with a giddiness, and an almost overwhelming desire to please them and make them happy.

‘Right!’ He claps his hands and rubs them together. ‘Was there something we were going to do this afternoon? Somewhere…we wanted to go?’

Lilah gasps, and clutches his arm, jumping up and down.

‘The park, the park!’

Fitz clicks his fingers, as though he has just remembered. ‘Oh, that’s _right_! And, uh…we were going to get something there, weren’t we? Now, what was it?’

‘Ice cream!’ By this point, both children are bouncing around him as though they are already experiencing a sugar high. ‘Ice cream!’

‘Oh, really?’ Fitz makes a mock surprised face. ‘Well, in that case, we’d better get going then, hadn’t we?’

He helps Alfie slot the painting into his backpack, being careful not to tear the paper in the process, and straightens up, holding out his hands for the children to take. They take them without hesitation, clinging to them with an absolute trust that only Jemma has ever had in him before.

More than anything else, it is this trust that leaves Fitz breathless.

Somehow, within five minutes of setting off for the park, Fitz ends up carrying both Archie and Lilah’s schoolbags, while the two of them dance on ahead of him up the cobbled lane.

This is not necessarily a problem, as neither bag is particularly heavy or large given the size of its owner, but it does mean that it’s a little harder for Fitz to check the map on his phone for the location of the park. Juggling both bags in his arms, he finally manages it and is relieved to find that the children are reliable navigators after all. They will be arriving at the park in a little under five minutes.

When they do, Fitz is surprised to find it a far larger park than he had been expecting. In his mind’s eye, he had imagined a swing set, a slide, maybe even a merry-go-round, but this park exceeds all his expectations. There is a children’s playground at one side, with all the usual play equipment and soft bark shavings covering the ground to protect their knees. The rest of the park consists of about an acre of grassy meadow, peppered with blue cornflowers and golden buttercups, with brown picnic benches dotted about and a gravelled pavement running around its circumference. In the middle stands an old bandstand which has been converted into a café. The blackboard sign outside proudly announces that it is here you can buy your ice creams.

Noticing this suddenly reminds Fitz that it has been almost five hours since he ate his pancakes, and a nagging hunger returns to his belly.

‘So,’ he says to the children hopefully, ‘what do you want to do first?’

‘Ice cream,’ Archie decides immediately, grabbing his sister by the hand and dragging her across the grass.

Well, Fitz thinks as he follows them, Jemma was right. There was no doubt Archie was his son.

The ice cream café offers one, two, or three scoops on a cone but, remembering Simmons’ instructions, Fitz insists that the children are allowed only one.

‘Which flavour would you like?’ he asks, and when Lilah stretches up onto her tiptoes to peer at the vats of ice cream over the counter he puts his hands under her armpits and lifts her up, so she can see better.

‘Pink!’ she decides, and Fitz orders one small cone of strawberry.

‘Archie?’ he asks, and the boy points to the carton of chocolate ice cream.

Choosing rum and raisin for himself, Fitz pays the bored looking teenager manning the café and the three of them stroll back out into the warm summer afternoon. Fitz refuses to let the children go straight to the playground while they’re eating and instead suggests they walk around the path. In between licks, Lilah points to flowers and names them for him, wonderfully creative, outlandish names that Fitz is fairly certain she is making up as she goes along, but nods sagely when she announces them anyway.

Archie finishes his cone first and, licking his fingers, darts across the meadow towards the playground. Crestfallen, Lilah watches him go before turning to Fitz and pressing the rest of her – now rather sticky – cone into his hand.

‘Had enough now,’ she tells him, and takes off after her brother.

‘Oh,’ Fitz says, a little too late. He looks down at the half-eaten cone and the dribble of pink leaking over his thumb. ‘Alright then.’

Left with the remnants of his own ice cream and now Lilah’s too, he makes his way over to an empty picnic bench near the playground and sits down at it. Across the park, he watches as Archie reaches the slide and clambers up to the top. Following hot on his heels, Lilah crouches at the bottom to wait for him.

Munching on his ice cream cone, Fitz allows himself to reflect on his morning discoveries. The most pressing question on his mind is how long he will be staying in this sun-addled, domestic future. Surely if it was only as long as he’s been unconscious he’d have woken up by now. He doubts Coulson’s fist was hard enough to knock him out for a full twenty-four hours.

Maybe, he wonders, finishing his own cone and starting on Lilah’s, it was only for the day. Maybe by the time he went to sleep in this world the hormones causing this abnormal mental response would have worked their way out of his system. He would wake up back in his own, less muscular, body, and life on the Bus would resume as normal. Or, at least, semi-normal.

How could things ever be normal again now that he’d kissed Jemma and met their children?

Fitz pops the last of Lilah’s ice cream in his mouth and wipes his hands on his jeans, suddenly feeling a little bit queasy. He supposes he’d just have to figure that out once he was back.

It is at this moment that Lilah ambles back over to him, holding something in her hands.

Fitz grins at her, feeling himself relax a little now that he is distracted from his thoughts. ‘What have you got there, Lilah?’ he asks.

Wordlessly, she opens her hands to reveal a large snail sitting on her palm, its beady eye stalks waving about.

‘Oo-ohhhhh.’

Barely holding back his wave of disgust, Fitz feels his smile disintegrate into a grimace. Before he can recoil from it, Lilah has stepped forward and grasped one of his hands. She yanks it towards her with surprising strength for a three-year-old and proudly deposit the snail into it. It takes all the strength in Fitz’s body not to scream and drop it on the ground.

‘That’s…’ He struggles, feeling the snail begin to move across his palm and swallows a retch. ‘Lovely, darling,’ he finishes, trying out a pet name to make up for his obvious revulsion. ‘Where…where did you find it?’

‘Under the bushes,’ Lilah tells him, pointing vaguely behind her. She observes him, and her features fall into a pout. ‘You’re not making the funny face, Daddy!’

Fitz stares at her. ‘Uh, funny face?’

‘Yes!’ Lilah puts her tiny hands on her hips, in a gesture so reminiscent of Simmons that Fitz has to do a double take. ‘Your _funny face_.’

This time, she demonstrates, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue.

_Oh_.

Here he had been trying to hide how grossed out he was from her, and that had been what she’d wanted to see all along. Fitz can’t help feeling a little affronted.

_Charming_.

Sighing, he lets his face twist into a look of utter revulsion, waggling his tongue at her as he does so. ‘Bleeeargh!’ he adds, for good measure.

Lilah dissolves into giggles and, satisfied, she reaches out to retrieve the snail and take it back into her own hands.

‘Archie fell over,’ she says, quite matter-of-factly, as she brings the snail up to her eye level to examine it further.

‘What?’ Alarmed, Fitz looks up, scanning the horizon beyond them for his son. ‘Where?’

Lilah points again, towards a corner of the park behind her, where Fitz can just see the top of a coppery head rising up out of the long grass.

‘Bloody hell!’ he moans, and, scrambling to his feet, sets off in a run towards it.

As he runs, Fitz feels his heart constrict with panic, wondering how bad the fall had been. Children, he knew, could be surprisingly resilient but they could also be spectacularly fragile. He had been about Archie’s age when he’d taken a tumble and broken his arm, a shock that had been so painful he could still remember it to this day. Thinking about Archie experiencing the same pain makes Fitz run a little bit faster.

When he reaches him, Fitz’s immediate reaction is relief. Archie is sitting on his bottom on the gravel path with his legs spread out in front of him, holding his hands up with his palms face upwards. As far as Fitz can see, he has no broken limbs, no unnatural bending at his joints or splintered bone poking through his skin. But then Archie looks up to him and the tears streaming down his face fill Fitz with a powerful feeling of dismay.

‘I fell,’ his son says thickly.

Fitz kneels beside Archie and takes in his injuries. There are angry red scratches on the palms of his hands, with grit in them and underneath his fingernails. His knees both have deep grazes, trickling blood down his legs and into his socks. Fitz feels his stomach lurch; Simmons was always the best one for handling bodily fluids. But, as he watches, Archie’s hands begin to tremble and Fitz is filled with the overwhelming urge to comfort him.

‘Hey, little man,’ he says gently, the affectionate nickname his grandmother had used for him until he was eighteen slipping out instinctively. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay.’

He reaches out and rubs the little boy’s shoulder in an attempt at reassurance. Archie hiccups, and draws his forearm across his face to wipe his nose. Fitz fights the urge to wrinkle his face up and takes a deep breath.

‘Why don’t we get you cleaned up a bit, eh?’

Archie nods miserably, and leans forward to wrap his arms around Fitz’s neck. Taking his cue, Fitz stands carefully, lifting him with him, and Archie clings to him like a limpet. With the distinct impression that he is one squeeze away from being strangled, Fitz carries him to the nearest picnic bench and sits him on the table top.

Lilah joins them, skipping around the table and mumbling ‘bloody hell’ to herself, over and over again. Fitz winces, not wanting to contemplate Jemma’s reaction if she could hear what he’d taught their daughter to say.

‘Lilah,’ he begs her, ‘please don’t say that.’

Much to his surprise, she stops, and presses her fingers to her lips with a grin. She flops onto the grass to investigate the flowers and Fitz turns back to Archie.

‘Alright,’ he says, trying to sound more certain than he feels. ‘Let’s see what we can do.’

He reaches into his pockets, hoping to find a rumpled tissue or two, and is pleasantly surprised to find a packet of alcohol-free anti-bacterial wipes instead. Immediately, his respect for his future self’s parental ability increases threefold. He shows the wipes to Archie.

‘I’m going to use these,’ he says, ‘but you’re going to have to sit still for me, okay?’

Archie’s eyes are still wet, but he nods, and juts his chin forwards in determination. A wave of pride at his bravery fills Fitz’s chest, and, taking a wipe out of the pack, he gets to work.

He cleans Archie’s knees first, catching the dribble of blood before it seeps into his socks and wipes away the trail it had made on his leg. Then, he moves onto his hands, trying to be as gentle as possible. The priority, he knows, is to clean the grit out of the cuts, to prevent them getting infected. Bringing Archie’s palms right up to his face, he concentrates on each scrape in turn, double checking every one before moving on to the next.

Archie bears all this patiently enough, his tears having dried up and his snuffles falling silent after a few minutes. But his arms were growing limp, and when Fitz puts down the last wipe and pronounces him done, Archie reaches up towards him.

Feeling his heart contract, Fitz bends down to allow him to clamber into his arms again. He sits his son on his hip and lets him wrap his legs about his waist.

‘I want Mummy,’ Archie murmurs into his shoulder, wiping his nose against his jumper.

At his side, Fitz feels a tiny hand slip into his own, and when he looks down he finds Lilah leaning into his side.

‘Mummy,’ she repeats, and Fitz finds that he is entirely in agreement. In this moment, he rather wants Jemma too.

‘Okay,’ he tells the children, squeezing Lilah’s hand and tightening his hold on Archie. ‘Okay. Let’s go home.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If Fitz had thought about it for longer, he probably would have come to the conclusion that this was a very bad idea. Because it was a very bad idea; waking up back on the Bus was going to be disorienting enough as it was without his last memory of the future being kissing his best friend.
> 
> And yet if he is going to wake up tomorrow back in his own body, in the time that he’d left behind, Fitz doesn’t want to leave without doing it. So, when Jemma rests her forehead against his, he closes his eyes and kisses her back."
> 
> Fitz's time in the future comes to an end...or does it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a longer chapter to make up for the last short one! thank you all so much for your lovely comments <3

Once they return to the cottage, Jemma makes such a fuss of Archie that Fitz is almost jealous.

She swoops their son out of his arms and sits him on the kitchen counter, bringing a first aid kit down from a cabinet above him. She calls him her poor little solider, and, after checking Fitz’s job cleaning his wounds and flashing him a satisfied smile, brings out a packet of plasters.

‘Paw Patrol or Fireman Sam?’ she asks him.

Archie hesitates for a moment, before pointing to the plasters decorated with cartoon dogs in emergency service uniforms. Jemma uses one on each of his knees before rubbing Sudocrem into the grazes on his hands and pressing her lips to each of his palms in turn.

‘There,’ she says gently, brushing his curls off his forehead. ‘You’ll be good as new in no time.’

Archie gives her a wan smile and lets himself be cuddled for a while before wriggling out of her arms and escaping into the living room. Fitz steps aside to let him pass and moves gingerly into the kitchen. Ever since they’d returned from the park, he has felt the urge to explain to Jemma what had happened, his gut churning with guilt that he’d let her son – _their_ son – get hurt.

‘I was watching him,’ he says.

Jemma doesn’t even glance at him as she fastens the first aid kit and replaces it in the cabinet.

‘Of course you were.’

‘I knew exactly where they both were,’ Fitz continues, watching her anxiously, ‘the whole time.’

Turning to switch the kettle on, Jemma throws him an odd look.

‘Yes…’

‘But Lilah brought me a snail and I got distracted. I took my eye off him, just for a minute, but…’

‘Fitz.’ Jemma stops him with a reassuring touch to his arm. She looks up at him, her eyes soft and forgiving. ‘He’s _six_. He’s bound to fall over. He’s bound to get scrapes and scratches and bruises, they both are.’

‘I know, I know, but…’

‘ _No_ buts!’ Jemma shakes her head with a smile. ‘I understand. I would do anything if it meant neither of them could ever get hurt, but that’s just not realistic.’ She takes a step towards him. ‘We can’t stop them from falling,’ she says, ‘but we can be there to pick them up afterwards. And you _were_. That’s the only thing that matters.’

Fitz nods, the tight knots in his stomach loosening slightly, but he must have looked unconvinced because Jemma sighs. She reaches up and wraps her arms around his shoulders, lifting herself onto her tiptoes to hug him. Fitz starts at the sudden contact, but when he feels her cheek press against his chin and her fingers clutch at the fabric of his jacket, he lifts his own arms to hold her tightly in return. He closes his eyes and breathes in the familiarity of the situation, comforted by her arms around him and her heart beating against his own.

As he exhales against Jemma’s shoulder, Fitz feels like he has come home.

After a few more moments, Jemma pulls away. Her arms trail down his own until they reach his hands, where she links their fingers together. She smiles at him. ‘Alright?’

‘Alright,’ Fitz confirms, his lips quirking up to return the smile.

‘Good.’ Jemma swings their joint hands. ‘I can’t believe you carried him all the way home. You were just telling me the other day that he was getting too heavy for that!’

Fitz is unsurprised at this. Archie wasn’t exactly a large child but after ten minutes or so of carrying him, he had begun to feel his arms ache and his back strain. He doesn’t tell Jemma this, though, but simply shrugs.

‘It’s like you said,’ he tells her, ‘the only thing that matters is that we’re there to pick them up.’

Jemma gives a low chuckle and angles her body closer to his.

‘My hero,’ she whispers, and Fitz feels his skin prickle with heat. She leans towards him, so close he can feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. His heart skips a beat as he realises what she is going to do, and he is surprised to experience a pull from somewhere deep in his gut that feels suspiciously like-

There is a clatter from the living room, and Fitz jumps about a foot in the air.

‘Muuuuum,’ a plaintive voice wails, ‘Lilah knocked over my Lego tower!’

Jemma rolls her eyes at him and releases his hands. She leaves, heading into the living room to soothe Archie’s hurt feelings and Lilah’s defensive insistences. Fitz has to close his eyes and count to twenty before he can follow her.

He isn’t sure whether he is disappointed or relieved for their interruption.

The rest of the evening is devoted to the children’s routine. Dinner comes at five thirty and Fitz sits next to Lilah again for the meal. In between mouthfuls of his own plate of lasagne, he encourages her to use her knife and fork to eat instead of just her hands, to little avail. By the end of the meal, there is tomato sauce across her cheeks and her hands are sticky with cheese.

Once they have finished, Jemma commandeers their daughter and swoops her off for her bath. Fitz is left with Archie, who wordlessly picks up a tea towel and looks expectantly up at him. Taking the hint, Fitz runs a sink and begins to wash up their glasses, handing them carefully to the little boy to dry and then lifting them back into the cupboard where they belonged.

Unfortunately, their seamless teamwork does not carry over into bath time. With Jemma and Lilah in the main bathroom, Fitz has to lead Archie into the small shower room downstairs. As soon as he picks up the boy’s towel, Archie starts to drag his feet.

‘I don’t have to shower tonight,’ he announces.

Fitz stops. ‘What do you mean?’ He is fairly certain six-year-olds needed to shower every night.

Archie looks to the floor and shuffles his feet. ‘I just don’t.’

Beginning to feel a little out of his depth, Fitz tries to reason with him. ‘But, um, you fell over today. Surely you want to shower to get all the dirt off you?’

Archie shakes his head vehemently, his lips tightly pursed. ‘No.’

‘Uh…okay.’ Fitz glances around the room in desperation, and the sight of a flannel in the sink gives him an idea. He grabs it and shows it to Archie. ‘How about this? We put soap and water on this and use it instead. Then you don’t have to get in the shower.’

He had thought this was rather ingenious, but Archie seems horrified. ‘No!’ He shoves the flannel away. ‘No water! I _can’t_!’

Fighting back his frustration, Fitz sinks to his knees beside him. ‘But why _not_?’

Archie sighs, his shoulders sagging. He points to his knees. ‘My plasters. They’ll come off if they get wet.’

_Ah_. Sitting back on his heels, Fitz thinks for a moment. Then, he clicks his fingers at Archie. ‘Back in a tick.’

Five minutes later, Archie is happily dancing under the shower head, humming the theme song to Paw Patrol as Fitz hands him soap and shampoo from behind the shower curtain. Wrapped tightly around his knees is a layer of cling film, keeping his plasters perfectly dry.

‘Night, Dad,’ Archie says when he tucks him up in bed. He wriggles down under the duvet and lifts his head up. ‘Love you.’

The words sound so earnest coming from his mouth that Fitz is taken aback.

He swallows, and smiles. ‘I love you too,’ he says, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

He switches off Archie’s bedside lamp and closes his door softly behind him. He is about to head down the stairs when he hesitates, something calling him back. Carefully, he creeps across the landing and opens Lilah’s bedroom door.

She is flung out across the bed like a starfish, her arms out of the duvet clutching an assortment of stuffed animals. Her lips are slightly parted, and every so often they move, as if she is narrating her dreams to herself. Even in sleep there is a vitality to her, a magnetism that draws Fitz down to drop a light kiss to her forehead.

If he does leave her world tonight, he thinks as he clicks her door shut, at least he has said a proper goodbye.

Jemma glances up from her book as he enters the living room. She smiles at him, and Fitz feels his heart flip over inside his chest.

‘All quiet on the western front?’ she quips.

He nods, and sits down beside her on the sofa. ‘They’re both dead to the world.’

‘Finally.’ Jemma sets her book down with a grin. ‘I love them more than anything in the world, but sometimes they can be more tiring than six months on a bloody alien planet.’ She chuckles to herself, then looks across at him. ‘You know what I mean?’

Fitz doesn’t, and is a little alarmed by how specific her comparison is. But then Jemma reaches out to lace her fingers through his, and thoughts about anything but that fall from his head.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I do.’

Jemma turns on the TV and opens Netflix, scrolling for a little while before selecting a program Fitz doesn’t recognise. Clearly though, his future self has been watching it with her because when the episode begins the ‘previously on’ features a myriad of interconnecting storylines that hint at an imminent resolution.

As the opening credits start to play, Jemma lifts his arm up and places it around her shoulders, snuggling into his side. Every so often, she makes little remarks relating to the episode, complaining about inconsistencies or making snide comments about the characters. Fitz does his best to pay attention to what she is saying, making the appropriate response, all while trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest at how close she is to him.

But, as the episode goes on, he starts to relax. The show isn’t particularly complicated, and after a while he even starts to enjoy it. Soon, when Jemma cracks a joke he gives a genuine smirk, and when the episode ends and another starts right after it he is even able to offer her his own. Her laughter vibrates through his body, warming him to his core.

The evening feels like the ones they used to spend together at the Academy, sat side by side on Jemma’s narrow dorm bed, their knees just touching. They would watch TV shows then too, his laptop balanced on his legs and a bowl of popcorn balanced on hers, and give each other a running commentary throughout. The only difference tonight of course is that Jemma has her head in the crook of his neck and her fingers entwined with his.

Fitz realises with a start that he can’t remember the last time he and Jemma had done this. The last few months on the Bus had been too busy to allow for a movie night, their evenings being filled with missions and diagnostics and research instead. Letting his head drop to one side so that it rested on top of Jemma’s, Fitz realises that he has missed this. He has missed her.

Was it possible to be homesick for a live he had never lived?

When the second episode ends and Jemma switches off the TV, he is startled to look up and find that the sky outside has grown dark and far-away stars are glinting at him from the window. His heart sinks inexplicably as he realises what this means.

Jemma stands and stretches, arching her back so that her shirt rides up, exposing her midriff. Almost as if she knows how he is feeling, she gives him a regretful smile.

‘Bed time.’

Upstairs, Jemma heads to the bathroom with a towel in hand, leaving Fitz to slope into their bedroom alone.

Remembering that he had woken up in only his boxers, he takes a peek underneath his pillow, hoping that a pair of rather more modest pyjamas had manifested during the day. They have not. Sighing, he strips out of his jeans and retrieves the t-shirt he had dropped on the floor that morning instead, before pushing back the sheets and crawling into bed.

Once there, Fitz gazes around the room. It had been the first thing he’d seen upon waking up, the first part of the puzzle he’d spent most of the day trying to piece together. He looks from the bed to the curtains to the framed photographs, and remembers the feeling of safety he’d felt from looking at them. He realises with a start that he’d probably felt so safe because some part of his subconscious had known that he shared the room with Jemma. Folding his hands in his lap, Fitz leans back against his pillow, a curious emptiness in his chest.

A few moments later, Jemma enters, wearing a pair of worn tartan pyjama bottoms and a soft cotton t-shirt. She has removed her contact lenses and tortoiseshell glasses are balanced on her nose, that she keeps shoving higher up. She smiles at him as she pulls her hair out of its ponytail and shakes it free.

‘A whole week with the two of them at home,’ she teases, flopping down on the bed beside him. ‘However will we manage?’

Thinking about Archie and Lilah, with their boundless energy and unconditional trust for him, makes Fitz’s heart clench.

‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something,’ he says, managing to shoot her a wry grin. ‘How hard can it be?’

Jemma snorts. ‘ _Very_ hard, which you know perfectly well.’ She shifts closer to him, and elbows him gently in the ribs. ‘But we’ll get through it together, right?’

‘Of course,’ Fitz says with a sinking feeling. ‘Together.’

Jemma gives him another smile, and takes his hand as she opens her book again. She begins to read, leaving Fitz to stare at their joined hands and ruminate on the day he’s had.

When he’d first woken up, he’d been terrified. The uncertainty of the situation, combined with the fast pace of the life he’d been thrown into, had overwhelmed him. After his initial investigations, all he’d been able to think about was putting one foot in front of the other and waiting for Lorelei’s enchantment to wear off and his world to be put to right.

But as the day had gone on, things had gotten…well, not easier. That would be the wrong word to use. He’d been horrified at the park when Archie had gotten hurt, and coaxing Lilah to use a fork to eat her dinner had been as painful as pulling teeth. But, gradually, Fitz had begun to feel less like an outsider in their world. He’d stopped having to think so hard about what a husband might do, or what a father might do, and had just been himself. He had been surprised to find that, for Jemma and the children, that had been enough.

As always, thinking about Jemma makes him turn to her. Twisting his head on the pillow, Fitz gazes at her, watching the slight pucker on her forehead as she muses over a line in her book. He hasn’t thought much about what her presence here in his future means, because to think about it would be to admit that, now that the shock has worn off, it isn’t as surprising as he’d first thought.

Whenever he’d thought about his future before, Jemma had always been there. Her role had been murky, the details undefined, but she was always there. He had counted on it with a childlike faith without really thinking about what it meant. But now that he is staring it in the face, Fitz is forced to do just that.

Jemma turns the page, bending her face forward, and the bedside lamp illuminates her face. Her lips quirk upwards in a half-smile, and she pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, totally unaware of his attention. Fitz thinks of all the times he has looked at Jemma before now. He remembers parties at Sci-Ops, holidays at home, and conferences at the Academy. He remembers every time she has stood beside him in a lab, but he cannot remember a single time when she looked more beautiful than she does now.

Against his better judgement, Fitz makes a decision.

‘Hey,’ he says, but his throat is so dry it comes out as more of a squeak. He clears his throat, and tries again. Gently, he touches her arm. ‘Jemma.’

She turns to him expectantly, closing her book. ‘Hmm? Everything alright?’

‘Sure.’ Fitz nods. ‘I just, ah…’ He sucks in a deep breath and licks his lips. ‘Well, after what happened yesterday, I didn’t want to forget your goodnight kiss two days in a row.’

The words trip on his tongue, desperate as he is to get them out before his courage fails him, and it is only when he has finished his sentence that he realises he has been staring at their duvet cover the whole time. He raises his eyes and finds Jemma watching him with a strange expression on her face, and for a moment he thinks she has sussed him out.

But then she chuckles, and the tension falls from his shoulders. ‘Heaven forbid,’ she murmurs, and leans across the bed.

If Fitz had thought about it for longer, he probably would have come to the conclusion that this was a very bad idea. Because it _was_ a very bad idea; waking up back on the Bus was going to be disorienting enough as it was without his last memory of the future being kissing his best friend.

And yet if he is going to wake up tomorrow back in his own body, in the time that he’d left behind, Fitz doesn’t want to leave without doing it. So, when Jemma rests her forehead against his, he closes his eyes and kisses her back.

The kiss is deeper than the one she had given him at the gate this morning, more purposeful, considered. Jemma’s lips move carefully across his own, and when her tongue slides into his mouth a spark of electricity runs down Fitz’s spine. His hands move as if by their own accord to hold her, sliding across her back to pull her nearer across the mattress, to mould their bodies together. Against his lips, Jemma grins, kissing him again. He feels her slide one of her legs between his own, manoeuvring herself into an easier position, and his heart, that had already been thumping, begins to pound against his ribs like a caged bird.

He is just about to reach up, to caress her jaw with his fingers, to tangle his hands in her hair, when Jemma breaks away. There is a brightness to her eyes as she kisses him chastely on the lips one last time.

‘Goodnight, Fitz,’ she whispers with a smile.

A strand of dark hair has fallen across her face. Fitz leans across to tuck it back behind her ear as he makes his reply.

‘Goodnight, Jemma.’

She twists away from him, switching off the bedside lamp. All of a sudden, the bedroom fills with darkness and Fitz wishes she’d left it on.

Sighing, Jemma burrows down beneath the duvet and, after a moment, Fitz does the same. As soon as he does so, Jemma turns to him, cuddling up against his side just as she’d done on the sofa. She rests her head on his chest and brings her arm across him, rubbing the soft fabric of his t-shirt between her thumb and forefinger. Underneath his nose, Fitz feels her hair tickle.

He listens, hearing her breathing grow quiet and even, until he is sure she is asleep. Her body is warm against his own, and heavy, but in a comforting way. It makes him feel safe, as though she is tethering him to this world, and keeping him from floating away.

As he feels his eyelids start to flicker and his limbs fall slack, Fitz realises that this is exactly what he wants.

His last thought before he falls asleep is that he is not ready to go.

Fitz is woken by the light. It is a gentle awakening, not like before. He does not snap his eyes open, but allows himself to wake gradually. He wants to enjoy the warmth on his skin and the memory of falling asleep with Jemma before he has to open his eyes to the world of the Bus and the chaos he had left behind.

He stretches – and freezes.

Hardly daring to breathe, Fitz opens his eyes. Sunlight streams in from the gap in the curtains, revealing the same bedroom he’d fallen asleep in, bathed in early morning light. Also illuminated by this light are the gentle curves of the body Fitz had fallen asleep beside.

He and Jemma have both moved in the night, gravitating towards one another as if drawn together by some magnetic force. His arm is slung over her waist and her body is fitted against his, her back against his chest and her head tucked under his chin. The sheets are tangled about their legs and Fitz can feel Jemma’s toes, icy cold in spite of the blankets, resting against his ankles.

Slowly, he exhales and feels his stomach churn with unadulterated excitement.

He is not on the Bus. He is still here.

His breath ruffles the hair on top of Jemma’s head, and she stirs. Twisting in his arms, she turns over so that she is facing him when she blinks her eyes open. She smiles, sleepily.

‘Morning,’ she mumbles.

Fitz stares at her. He has seen Jemma be tired before, more times than he could count. Late nights at the lab had always made his best friend’s tongue a little sharper and her behaviour rather needy. She would follow him to every station he moved to and peer over his shoulder relentlessly until he told her, frustrated by lack of sleep himself, to step back a little. She would huff, and sulk for a while, before slowly gravitating back to his side and he, feeling guilty for snapping at her, would let her.

But despite his familiarity with tired Jemma, Fitz was utterly unfamiliar with this Jemma, emerging from the other side of sleep with rumpled hair and a tenderness in her eyes that tugs at his heart.

‘Did you sleep well?’ he manages to say.

‘Mmm.’ Jemma yawns and stretches like a cat: Fitz can feel her toes brush down the length of his foot. ‘Wonderfully, thank you. Did you?’

Wordlessly, he nods. He can’t remember the last time he’s slept so well.

Jemma smiles again, her eyelids drifting shut. She reaches out her arms to encircle his middle, pulling him closer, and snuggles against his chest. Fitz brings his hand up to rest it on her shoulder blade, absently moving his fingers in a circular motion.

He had been sure, so sure, that he would wake up and have left this vision of the future behind. Last night it had felt so much like the most likely outcome that he hadn’t bothered to think about what might happen if he didn’t. But, now, here he was.

Here, Fitz thinks gazing down at Jemma’s face, they were.

He is beginning to wonder whether she has gone back to sleep when she speaks, her words muffled by his t-shirt.

‘Guess what I want.’

‘Um…’

For a moment, Fitz’s mind draws a blank. Then he remembers that the Jemma he is speaking to is the same Jemma he has lived with for almost a decade, and that there is only ever one thing that she wants at this time in the morning.

He grins. ‘Tea?’

Jemma chuckles, and pats him clumsily on the chest. ‘You read my mind,’ she teases, before giving him a gentle push.

Rolling away from her, Fitz pushes back the sheets and places his feet on the carpet. He stands with a sharp intake of breath, half expecting the floor to give way beneath him as the fantasy dissolved and he woke from the dream at last. But it doesn’t.

Tentatively, Fitz moves towards the door. Taking hold of the brass doorknob, he opens it then hesitates. He glances back over his shoulder to the bed, where Jemma has rolled across the bed to claim the warmth of the space he has just vacated. She has the duvet tucked up underneath her chin, and a strand of hair sticking up from her forehead. Curled up like that with a blissful expression of peace on her face, she looks nearly ten years younger.

Smiling to himself, Fitz steps through the door and into the new day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "‘What do you mean by that?’ Fitz asks, affronted.
> 
> Jemma shrugs again. ‘Well, you never flirted with me like that,’ she says, her words a little muffled.
> 
> For a moment, Fitz can only stare at her. There is a curious, defensive edge to her voice that he vaguely remembers having himself whenever she’d spoken to him about a new boyfriend. He remembers it well enough, that prickly sensation in his gut that made him screw his face into a scowl.
> 
> Slowly, something dawns on him and his mouth widens into a grin.
> 
> ‘Wait…are you jealous?’"
> 
> Fitz lives the domestic life, with all its ups and downs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so pleased you're all enjoying this story!! i'm so sorry that i haven't replied to your lovely comments yet but i was at work all day today and don't have the energy tonight, i promise i will get to them tomorrow 💜

Once, when Fitz had been very young, he’d sat on the stairs and listened to his mum talk on the phone in the next room. She had been talking to his aunt who’d moved to Australia, and she had been talking about him.

‘Routine, Rosie,’ his mum had said. ‘That’s all he needs. Everything is so much easier when we have a routine.’

She had been right of course. As a child, Fitz had always been happier when he’d known exactly how his days were going to be mapped out. There had been a whiteboard in their kitchen and every morning his mum had dragged a chair across to it and helped him stand up on the seat as they blocked out the day together. Breakfast, school, playtime, dinner time, bath time, bed. It had made him feel safe and secure, as though by writing out the words in stubby black letters he could prevent anything untoward from happening that day.

It is only now that Fitz realises that having such a routine had probably helped his mum just as much as it had helped him.

In the days that follow, he comes to rely heavily on Archie and Lilah’s daily routine to guide him through the day. It is not particularly complex, especially now they aren’t at school. They wake early, and usually noisily, and it is not long before they are sneaking into his and Jemma’s room and jumping on their bed. While Jemma gets washed and dressed, he takes them downstairs and sits them at the pine table to get their breakfast. He can’t quite manage scotch pancakes, but can just about pour them a bowl of cornflakes each.

After breakfast, Jemma takes the children down the lane to the village where they spend the morning at the café. Back at the cottage, Fitz is left to his own devices, ostensibly to work on SHIELD business but in reality he spends most of his time digging through folders of old blueprints and marvelling at the things he and Jemma have created over the years.

_A spaceship_ , he thinks, shaking his head in delight as he pores over the design, annotated in both their handwriting. _Unbelievable_.

And yet it is there in front of him in black and white, so he has to believe it.

He quickly learns that Jemma will leave him sandwich supplies in the minifridge in the Workshop, but more often than not he finds himself heading down to the café for lunch instead. There, he is always greeted by friendly faces, and Lilah and Archie’s sticky fingers. Jemma will pass him a cup of tea with a kiss to his cheek and he will sit at a table by the counter and wait for her to pick him something off the menu.

During the afternoon, he takes the children off her hands and the three of them go exploring. Once or twice they return to the park and Fitz will push Lilah on the swings while Archie, tentatively at first and then with more confidence, returns to the playground. He laughs as he jumps off the merry-go-round onto the soft bark chips and Fitz feels his body warm with happiness.

Back home, he will usher the children out to play in the garden and head inside to help Jemma with the dinner. She will chatter to him about her day, and he will respond with something funny Lilah had told him or tell her about the butterfly that had landed on Archie’s shoulder, and she will look up at him with a light in her eyes that makes Fitz’s heart flutter dangerously.

The rest of their evenings follow the regular pattern of bath and bedtime for the kids, sometimes with a storybook interjected in between if one or other of them is restless. Then, Fitz will sit beside Jemma on the sofa as they read or watch TV until she yawns and stands and says, ‘bedtime’.

Every night when he kisses her, Fitz expects it to be the last time.

Every morning he wakes up by her side and finds that it wasn’t.

‘I think I’ll have…ooh.’ The old lady whose order Fitz is supposed to be taking pauses, running her finger down the menu. She blinks up at him through her wide-rimmed glasses. ‘What would you recommend, Fitz, dear?’

Tapping his pen on his notepad, Fitz cocks his head to one side and pretends to think. ‘Well, now, Mary. I’m not sure. I suppose it entirely depends on whether you want to go savoury or sweet today.’

Mary chuckles. ‘Oh, sweet, I’m sure,’ she says, her eyes twinkling.

‘In which case, I would recommend the fruit scone,’ Fitz declares, pointing it out when Mary brings the menu up to her face and squints at it. ‘Comes with a pot of tea and your choice of jam. And,’ he adds, tapping the side of his nose and leaning closer to her, ‘don’t let on to the others, but I think I saw some blackcurrant out the back earlier.’

The ladies Mary is sitting with titter, and Mary raises her eyebrows at him. ‘Well! In that case…’ She hands him the menu back. ‘I’ll take the scone with blackcurrant jam, please.’

Fitz bobs his head at them in a mock bow. ‘Ladies,’ he says. ‘I’ll be back in a few moments.’

With a little salute to them, he spins on his heel and heads back to the kitchen with a spring in his step.

When Jemma’s waitress had called in sick this morning and she had begged him to take her place for the day, Fitz had been hesitant. He’d never had a service job before and, as proficient as he was with his hands in the lab, he doubted he’d be able to balance five plates and a tea pot in his arms at once.

‘You’ve done it before,’ Jemma had cajoled, and once he’d seen the pleading look on her face Fitz had given in. After all, if his future self had done it before, how hard could it be?

In the end, it had taken him very little time to begin enjoying himself. He wasn’t obliged to carry more than two plates at a time and most of the customers greeted him warmly, with a recognition in their eyes that Fitz wished he could reciprocate. Still, he joked with them, gave any children who came in an activity pack and a set of crayons, and before long had begun to wonder whether he had missed a trick. Maybe he was better suited for life as a waiter than he was for a SHIELD agent.

Mary and her friends in particular had treated him with such familiarity that Fitz guesses they are regulars at the café. His suspicions are confirmed when he walks into the kitchen and Linda, Jemma’s head chef, raises her head.

‘I suppose your lady friends are wanting their usual?’ she asks him.

She is standing at the counter behind Archie and Lilah, who are kneeling on stools. Both children have aprons tied to their waists and hairnets on. Lilah is happily decorating chocolate cupcakes with edible glitter and Archie is piping decorative patterns on biscuits, concentrating so hard that his tongue is sticking out.

Unsure what Mary and her friends’ usual is, Fitz reads off their orders from his notepad. Linda nods, and turns to boil the kettle.

‘Ten minutes,’ she calls to him.

Fitz nods back to her, and drops a kiss on the top of Lilah’s head. She wrinkles her nose in a picture-perfect imitation of Jemma, and bats his face with her hand, releasing a flurry of glitter into the air.

‘Don’t you think,’ Fitz asks her, looking down at her cupcake, ‘that you’ve got enough on there already, darling?’ The pet name from the park had felt oddly right in his mouth, so he’d stuck with it.

‘Nope,’ Lilah declares. She sprinkles another fistful of glitter onto the cake, which looks like it was the victim of an explosion in a fairydust factory. ‘More glitter,’ she explains.

Realising that he is fighting a losing battle, Fitz shakes his head and turns to find Jemma. She is at the back of the kitchen by the oven, trying to perfect a recipe she has been working on all week.

Fitz has been surprised by many things in this future, but Jemma becoming a baker is not one of them. She has always enjoyed cooking. He has fond memories of their weekends off at Sci-Ops when their shared kitchen would fill with the smell of freshly baked breads and cakes and he would be allowed to eat until he felt like he would burst.

‘Baking is a kind of chemistry,’ he remembers her telling him one day. She’d been standing at the sink, trying to rub cake batter off her nose, which Fitz had found adorable. ‘It’s all based on chemical reactions and physical processes. Really, it’s not a lot different from what I do in the lab all day.’

Fitz had wanted to point out that nothing she made in the lab was never as delicious as the cookie he had just eaten, but his mouth was still stuffed with the dough at the time so he hadn’t.

The memory of that day hits him suddenly, unexpectedly, and Fitz feels a sharp pang of something he can’t quite identify hit him in his stomach. Shaking it off, he steps towards Jemma and leans over her shoulder.

‘How’s it coming?’

She bats him off just as Lilah had done. ‘I think I’m close,’ she says with a sigh, standing back to let him look at the cake.

Gazing at it, Fitz is fairly certain she is already there. The smell is mouth-watering, the cake fresh out of the oven just an hour earlier. Jemma has covered it with a thick layer of buttercream icing and he can see lush red fruit sticking out of the middle.

‘White chocolate and strawberry, yeah?’ he asks, resisting the urge to lick his lips.

‘Mmm.’ Jemma lifts a knife and presses it to the top of the cake. The sponge gives way, and she cuts a thick slice, the cream filling oozing out over the sides. ‘I just can’t get the chocolate taste to come through strong enough.’

She passes him a fork and Fitz picks up a mouthful of the cake. It melts in his mouth, just as he’d expected it would. He gives a little moan.

‘Jemma. This is _amazing_.’

Her cheeks go a little pink as she chews her own forkful, nodding thoughtfully. Then, she grins at him.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ With her pinkie finger, she lifts a dollop of icing off the top of the cake and pops it in her mouth triumphantly. ‘I think I have my recipe.’

‘And not a moment too soon,’ Fitz declares. ‘Mary and the others have been asking about it. None of them can wait to try what I’ve already told them is going to be this place’s best cake yet.’

Jemma snorts, and plucks his fork from his hand just as he’d been going in for another bite.

‘Hey!’ he protests.

‘You’ve had enough! Honestly, Fitz…’ Jemma drops their forks in the sink and begins to run the hot water. ‘The way you are with those old ladies is just so…’

‘So _what_?’

Jemma’s face is lowered, as if she is concentrating on her washing up very intently. She shrugs. ‘I just never knew you could be such a _flirt_ , that’s all.’

Fitz splutters, feeling his face flush. ‘I don’t _flirt_ with them!’

‘Of course you do!’ Jemma laughs, still avoiding his gaze. ‘You tease them, you flatter them, you smile at them. It’s good for business, of course, because you keep them coming back. I just never knew you had it in you.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Fitz asks, affronted.

Jemma shrugs again. ‘Well, you never flirted with _me_ like that,’ she says, her words a little muffled.

For a moment, Fitz can only stare at her. There is a curious, defensive edge to her voice that he vaguely remembers having himself whenever she’d spoken to him about a new boyfriend. He remembers it well enough, that prickly sensation in his gut that made him screw his face into a scowl.

Slowly, something dawns on him and his mouth widens into a grin.

‘Wait…are you _jealous_?’

This time, it is Jemma’s turn to splutter and turn red. ‘What? That’s ridiculous, of course I’m not.’

Stepping back from her, Fitz crosses his arms in delight. ‘Yes, you are. You’re jealous of a pack of little old ladies.’

‘Urgh, Fitz!’ Jemma rolls her eyes at him. ‘Why on earth should I be jealous? We’re _married_!’

As if to prove her point, she shoves her hand up to his face, showing him her ring. Fitz tries to duck away from it and continue teasing her, but Jemma follows him, moving her hand up and down so that he can’t escape it however hard he tries.

Unable to keep himself from laughing, he ducks underneath her arm and grabs her by the waist. Jemma shrieks, but then she is laughing too, gripping his shirt with her hands as he spins her around and around.

‘Not in my kitchen!’ he hears Linda yell, and so he puts Jemma down, struggling for breath.

Immediately, Jemma spins in his arms and shows him her hand again. ‘Married,’ she says exultantly.

For the first time, Fitz looks at her ring. It is silver, like his own, but a thinner band. A grey stone is set in the middle of it that is smooth to touch and glistens like an oil spill whenever it catches the light. His breathing hitches, and it suddenly hits him that he has no memory of placing it on her finger – either time it had apparently happened.

A week ago, the thought of marrying Jemma had never even crossed Fitz’s mind. Why is it that, now, the idea of not being able to remember it fills him with such disappointment?

His feelings must have shown on his face, because Jemma’s smile drops. She loops her arms around his neck.

‘I’m sorry I accused you of flirting,’ she says, swaying them gently. ‘And…’ She hesitates, before begrudgingly admitting, ‘I suppose I might have been a little jealous.’

‘S’alright.’ Fitz drops his forehead to rest it against hers. The warmth of her skin on his own does something to abate the disappointment sitting heavy in his stomach. Then, deciding to throw his future self a bone, he adds, ‘I’m sorry I never flirted with you enough. I guess it’s just easier to flirt with the people you don’t actually…’

_Love_. He stumbles over the word and lets it trail off helplessly, his chest tightening.

Luckily, Jemma doesn’t seem to notice his struggle and her face softens.

‘Ah.’ She lifts her head and rubs her nose against his own. ‘You old romantic,’ she teases. ‘And it’s alright. If you’d like, I could start flirting with _you_.’

There is a glint of mischief in her eyes when she looks up at him that, momentarily, renders Fitz unable to speak.

‘Oh, yeah?’ he squeaks after a moment, then clears his throat hastily. ‘How…how do you mean?’

Jemma’s brows furrow as she thinks, then her face lights up. ‘Were your parents bakers by any chance?’ she asks, taking his hands.

‘Jemma, you know they weren’t. My mum was a primary school teacher, and-‘

She cuts him off with a finger to the lips.

‘ _Because_ ,’ she says pointedly, ‘they certainly made a cutie pie.’

The seriousness with which she delivers the pick-up line, combined with the absolute absurdity of the situation he has found himself in, makes Fitz snort with laughter. Soon, he is utterly helpless, and Jemma places her hands on her hips, her cheeks flaming.

‘It wasn’t supposed to be funny!’ she protests weakly, and when Fitz looks at her through his tears of laughter he is filled with such affection and weakness and _longing_ for her that he doesn’t think anything could hold him back from taking her face in his hands and kissing her in the middle of the kitchen.

He is saved, quite literally by the bell. Linda presses her hand firmly on the service bell she kept by her side and its sharp ring sounds out across the kitchen.

‘Order up,’ she says and hands him a tray neatly laden with tea pots and scones.

Fitz takes it, glancing at Jemma for her approval. She nods him towards the café door, but there is a playful smile on her lips that tells him they are alright. Returning the grin, Fitz balances the tray and heads back into the café to deliver Mary and her friends their lunch, determined that, this time, he will tone down the flirting.

That evening, Lilah is reluctant to eat her dinner. She manages a few bites of chicken that Fitz coaxes down her, but flat out refuses to touch her broccoli or her potatoes. She hugs her pink beaker of water and buries her head in her arms.

At the time, Fitz thinks very little of it. He assumes that Linda had allowed her to eat one too many cupcakes at the café and so he doesn’t force her to eat. It is only when he wakes in the dead of night with a cold, empty space beside him where Jemma should be that he realises something is wrong.

His immediate reaction is panic that Jemma is gone. Fitz’s heart flips over inside his chest as he scrambles out of the sheets, stubbing his toe on the bed frame in his haste to find her. Maybe the dream has finally collapsed around him and he has been left alone in some dark, nightmare-ish inversion of the future.

He staggers out of the bedroom and feels a flood of relief to find a light shining out of the bathroom. Gulping down several deep breaths of air, Fitz pushes open the door. Inside, Jemma is sitting on the toilet seat, holding Lilah in her arms. She gives him a wan smile as he enters the room.

‘Hi, stranger,’ she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear.

‘Hey,’ Fitz whispers back. He takes a step towards her, still a little shaky on his feet. ‘I, uh, woke up and you weren’t there. I was worried.’

Jemma pulls a sympathetic face. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Fitz. I didn’t mean to worry you.’ She nods to their daughter, who she is slowly rocking to sleep. ‘I heard her call me and I didn’t think to wake you up first. I just ran for her.’

Glancing down at Lilah, Fitz is startled to see how pale she looks and that there is a sheen of sweat on her forehead. He frowns. ‘Is she alright?’

‘She was sick in her bed,’ Jemma murmurs, running her fingers through Lilah’s hair. ‘And then again once I got her in here.’

‘What?’ Panic resurges through Fitz’s veins. He kneels beside them both, and presses the back of his hand to Lilah’s forehead. She is warm, but he has no idea if she is hot enough for it to be a fever. ‘Do we need to get her to the hospital? I can get the car running if you grab Archie, and…’

Jemma cuts him off with a light kick to his knee. ‘Fitz, it’s a stomach bug. As long as we keep her fluids up tomorrow, she’ll be fine. No need for the hospital.’ She sighs deeply. ‘I just wish I’d noticed she wasn’t well before I put her to bed.’

Glancing up, Fitz sees that her eyes have filled with tears.

‘Hey.’ Quickly, he reaches up and covers her hand with his own. ‘You can’t feel guilty about this. I _knew_ she hadn’t eaten any of her tea and I _still_ didn’t put two and two together. I just thought she’d had too many cakes before dinner.’

Jemma chuckles quietly. ‘That’s what I thought too,’ she admits. She gazes down at Lilah, who stretches and grasps for Jemma’s t-shirt with her fingers. ‘Poor baby girl.’

Fitz hums in agreement. He sits back on his heels and rests his head against Jemma’s arm, so that it is close to Lilah’s. Her shampoo smells like apples, just like Jemma’s. Fitz breathes it in, and moves his hand so that he can stroke her curls.

Now that his heart rate is beginning to slow, Fitz reflects on how visceral his reaction to the idea of Lilah being ill had been. Logically, he knows it shouldn’t have alarmed him as much as it did; he has only known her for five days and he still has no idea if this vision of the future is even real. And yet his concern for her and Archie, that deep-set protective instinct that feels like it comes from his very bones, feels so right that Fitz refuses to question it.

He may have only known them for five days, but he would walk through Hell itself if it kept them safe.

‘Fitz?’

‘Hmm?’ He blinks, and shakes his head. He had been so deep in thought that he hadn’t realised Jemma was speaking to him. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘I could tell!’ Jemma smiles at him fondly. She has stopped rocking Lilah and is simply holding her instead. ‘I asked if us being here – the three of us together – reminded you of anything?’

‘Uh…’ Fitz wracks his brains for a way around this. He looks up at Jemma, waiting expectantly for a shared memory he cannot give to her. ‘I’m guessing it reminds you of something,’ he says eventually.

‘I’m just think about the night she was born,’ Jemma says softly. There is a dreamy edge to her voice, as if she is being carried far away by her memories. ‘Remember? We were sitting in here after my waters had broken, a month early. Your mum was still two hours away and we couldn’t leave Archie. You wanted to bundle us all into the car and drive us to the hospital, like you did just now. But I didn’t want that, and I was panicking, spiralling out because everything seemed to be going wrong. But you just held me.’ She smiles, her eyes misting over again. ‘You kissed me, and suddenly everything was alright again.’

Fitz wants, desperately, to smile back at her. Even more than that, he wants to tell her yes, he remembers, because how could he not remember a moment like that? It is inconceivable that he doesn’t share the memory that makes her look at him with such love in her eyes that if he hadn’t already been on the floor one glance would have brought him to his knees.

There is an ache at the back of his throat and an emptiness in his heart as Fitz realises that he can’t tell her yes. He doesn’t remember and in that moment he misses the memory more than he has ever missed anything in his life.

To make up for this, he slowly rises up from the floor to wrap his arm around her shoulders and press a lingering kiss to her cool cheek.

‘Everything,’ he says, with only the slightest quiver to his voice, ‘is going to be alright.’

There is a beat, and then Jemma’s head drops to his shoulder and rests there. Fitz feels her exhale, as though his simple words have broken a dam and let all the tension out of her body.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

For what feels like a long time, they stay like that, the three of them curled into each other, breathing quietly in the cottage bathroom. But, when Jemma finally lifts her head, Fitz realises it was probably only a matter of minutes.

‘I think she’s properly asleep now,’ Jemma says, carefully manoeuvring Lilah so that she can scrutinize her face. ‘Could you hold her while I change her bed?’

Fitz nods, and bends down to allow her to pass Lilah into his arms. She is heavier than he had expected, her little body surprisingly solid. But she is warm too, and even though she is deep in sleep she turns her face towards his chest with a satisfied sigh.

As Jemma stands and moves to the linen cupboard to find fresh sheets, Fitz sinks to the floor, cradling his daughter. He tries to mimic Jemma’s way of stroking her hair as he holds her, but when this proves too awkward he settles for rocking her instead.

The hollow feeling in his chest is ebbing away now that he is holding her, as though her tiny body, still stuck somewhere between infant and little person, has filled the hole. But there is still a lump in his throat, born of an emotion Fitz can’t identify.

He sighs deeply, and presses his cheek against Lilah’s forehead.

‘What am I doing here, little girl?’ he murmurs to her.

Surprisingly enough, Lilah doesn’t answer. Closing his eyes, Fitz hugs her tighter and waits for Jemma to come back for them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "By Saturday morning, Lilah is able to eat a bowl of soggy cornflakes for breakfast and asks for an apple afterwards. Jemma cuts it into slices for her and kisses the top of her head triumphantly as she puts the plate in front of her.
> 
> ‘I think somebody’s feeling better,’ she says to Fitz. They stand in the doorway together, watching Lilah crunch on the apple. ‘Just in time for the weekend.’
> 
> ‘Yeah.’ Fitz crosses his arms over his chest. Although he is relieved Lilah is on the mend, he feels a twinge of sadness that their days on the sofa are at an end. He’d been rather enjoying them. ‘Do you, uh, have anything in mind for us to do?’
> 
> Jemma turns to him and tilts her head to one side. ‘How does a trip to the beach sound?’"
> 
> The Fitz-Simmons family head to the coast for a day of sea, sun and emotional revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the slight delay getting this chapter up!! i hope it was worth the wait.

For the next two days, Lilah is camped out on the sofa with a blanket, a pile of picture books, and Fitz’s undivided attention.

Jemma takes Friday off work, entrusting the café to Linda’s watchful eye, and takes Archie on long, fresh-air filled walks to prevent him catching the stomach bug. Then, she returns home to scrub every surface in sight with child-friendly anti-bacterial spray.

While she keeps Archie occupied and the rest of them germ free, Fitz takes care of Lilah. Some of the time, he lets her watch TV, allowing Netflix to play episode after episode of Peppa Pig until her eyelids start to droop and she falls sleep. Mostly, though, Lilah wants to be read to and Fitz is happy enough to oblige. Her picture books are filled with colours and simple stories that she will pore over for hours, her breath heavy on the pages.

‘Again?’ she will ask as soon as he’s finished a book, and Fitz will turn back to the first page. He wonders when he’d acquired this endless patience.

By Saturday morning, Lilah is able to eat a bowl of soggy cornflakes for breakfast and asks for an apple afterwards. Jemma cuts it into slices for her and kisses the top of her head triumphantly as she puts the plate in front of her.

‘I think somebody’s feeling better,’ she says to Fitz. They stand in the doorway together, watching Lilah crunch on the apple. ‘Just in time for the weekend.’

‘Yeah.’ Fitz crosses his arms over his chest. Although he is relieved Lilah is on the mend, he feels a twinge of sadness that their days on the sofa are at an end. He’d been rather enjoying them. ‘Do you, uh, have anything in mind for us to do?’

Jemma turns to him and tilts her head to one side. ‘How does a trip to the beach sound?’

When Fitz wakes on Sunday morning, the sky outside is cloudy and there is a crisp breeze in the air blowing in from the coast. When he tentatively mentions this to Jemma, she rolls her eyes at him and insists that it will brighten up later in the day. She tosses him a thick jumper and it hits him on the side of his head.

‘Suck it up,’ she orders.

Unlike Fitz, the children seem utterly oblivious to the less than ideal beach weather. They dart about the kitchen in shorts and t-shirts, chattering about the sea and shells and mermaids and pirates, as Fitz pours their orange juice and butters their toast.

‘Can we make a sandcastle, Dad?’ Archie asks, practically vibrating with excitement in his seat.

‘Only,’ Fitz says with a pointed look, ‘if you eat all your breakfast.’

Archie ducks his head and takes a bite of his toast obediently.

A loud clatter from the garden makes Fitz look up sharply. Squinting out of the kitchen window, he sees Jemma at the bottom of the garden, struggling to pull something large and stripy out of the shed.

‘What in the world?’ he murmurs, but when the object slips out of her hands and bonks her on the head, he glances one last time at the children before diving out of the back door and hurrying towards her.

‘Jemma!’ he calls, jogging across the grass. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

Rubbing the top of her head, Jemma rolls her eyes. ‘Well, you were making such a fuss about it being windy,’ she says, ‘that I thought I ought to dig out the windbreak.’ She bends down to pick up the unwieldy sticks of wood and their brightly striped canvas wall. ‘I knew we had one somewhere, I just didn’t realise it would be so far back in the shed…’

With a pinch of guilt, Fitz motions for the windbreak. ‘Here. Give it to me.’

Jemma meets his eye and passes it over. Fitz adjusts his hold on it until he can swing it over his shoulder, then peers at her with concern. ‘Is your head alright?’

Jemma chuckles, a knowing twinkle in her eye. ‘Of course it is. You’re very welcome to kiss it better if you’d like, though.’

Fitz is about to snort, and turn away, when something makes him hesitate. Making sure the windbreak is angled away from her, he leans towards her on tip toe and brushes his lips against her hair. He has kissed her every night this week, and yet none of those times had felt as intimate as this.

Swallowing hard, he steps back.

‘Better now?’

Jemma nods, and slips her hand into his. ‘Completely.’

They carry the windbreak to the car and pack it in beside the picnic blankets, cooler box full of sandwiches and water bottles, and the large assortment of toy buckets and spades Archie had insisted on taking.

As Jemma fastens the children into their car seats, Fitz takes the opportunity to turn his back to her and check the map on his phone. He’d searched for a route to a beach last night, choosing one that had sandy shores and a small seafront with kiosks and public toilets, and he didn’t want to let them down by taking a wrong turn. Satisfied that he has memorised the way, he slips his phone back into his pocket just as Jemma shuts Lilah’s door.

‘All set?’ she asks him.

Fitz shows her the car keys. ‘Let’s rock and roll.’

They drive out of the village and head towards the coast. As they get further away from the inland, Fitz has to reluctantly admit to himself that Jemma was right. It _is_ brightening up, and he can even see blue sky on the horizon. It looks as if it will be a good beach day after all.

They have been driving for maybe twenty minutes when Lilah kicks the back of his seat. ‘Music, please,’ she says.

Jemma leans forward and presses play on the car’s CD system. All at once, the speakers come to life, blaring out cheerfully sung nursery rhymes with enthusiastic drum beats and guitar solos. In the back seat, Lilah and Archie start to sing along, chanting out the words as they gaze out of the window. Jemma starts to sing as well, nodding her head to the beat as she does so. Before long, Fitz notices that he too is tapping his fingers against the stirring wheel in time to the music as he drives them down winding country roads. It makes him smile.

It is only when he drives past a large fork in the road that Jemma stops singing. She frowns, and twists in her seat to watch the turning go by.

‘Um, Fitz? Where are we going?’

‘The beach, of course,’ he replies.

‘Then, why, pray tell,’ Jemma asks with a raised eyebrow, ‘did we just pass the turning for our usual beach?’

_Bugger_. Fitz twists his lip in frustration. Why had it never occurred to him that Jemma would have found them a _usual_ beach?

‘Uh,’ he says, his mind whirring, ‘that’s because I thought we’d try out a new beach. Y’know, because it’s half term. I thought it would be fun.’

‘Oh.’ Jemma looks a little surprised, but settles back in her seat even so. After a moment, she smiles at him. ‘In which case, I’m looking forward to it.’

Fitz returns the smile, a little nervously. Inwardly, he prays that the beach will look as good as it had on google images.

When they pull into the car park forty-five minutes later, he is infinitely relieved to find that it does. The car park overlooks grassy dunes dotted with yellow ragwort, which lead down a sharp incline to the beach. The sun has come out in full now, shining down on sand that is so clean it is almost white. To the left of the beach, near the seaweed-covered sea defences, are rockpools, that Fitz can already imagine Lilah dipping her toes into.

Climbing out of the car, he shades his eyes with his hand as he gazes out at the calm, green-blue hue of the ocean. Then, he grins at Jemma as she clambers out after him.

‘Well?’

‘Hmm.’ Jemma purses her lips together, considering. She walks over to him and wraps her arms around his waist. ‘Perfect.’

They unpack the car and lug their gear down to the beach. Lilah and Archie, who had begun to drift off to sleep during the journey, are now wide awake and tumble down the dunes with shrieks of laughter.

While Fitz struggles to set up the windbreak, Jemma grabs one child and then the other to slather them in sun cream despite their struggling protests. When Archie finally squirms out of her arms and away to the water, he still has a dollop of apricot-scented gloop on his nose.

With a final grunt, Fitz jams the last spoke of the windbreak into the sand and dusts off his hands. He sighs, and stands back to admire his work. Behind the break, the wind can hardly be felt; it will make the perfect base for them today.

There is a tug to his t-shirt, and he looks down to find Lilah gazing up at him. She lifts her foot expectantly. ‘Shoes, Daddy.’

Having gotten use to understanding her short directives over the last week, Fitz kneels down to unbuckle her sparkly, purple jelly shoes.

‘You know not to go out of our sight,’ he reminds her as he does so, ‘or go in the water without either Mum or me there to watch you.’

She nods obediently, threading her fingers through the soft sand. When they latch onto a creamy cockle shell, she picks it up and presses it into his palm once he has finished removing her shoes.

‘For you,’ she says, before darting away to follow Archie.

Fitz stares after her for a moment, then tucks the shell carefully into his pocket.

He spends the rest of the morning building the promised sandcastle with them. Archie picks out their position, choosing a spot close to the rising tide. When Fitz explains to him that this means they will have to work quickly, before the sea meets them and washes the structure away, a light comes on behind his son’s eyes. Recognising his excitement at the challenge, Fitz grins, and tosses him a spade.

As they work, digging a circular ditch and tossing the discarded sand into the space in the middle, Jemma and Lilah race around the surrounding beach looking for shells and decorative rocks to adorn the castle walls. Fitz can hear Jemma explaining the geology of the local area to their three-year-old as they examine a quartz pebble together.

When the waves begin to lap at their toes, they add one last defensive turret before retreating to the safety of their camp. There, Jemma unpacks their sandwiches and they munch on those and packets of crisps as they watch the ocean slowly erode their castle.

‘It’s okay,’ Fitz says, when Lilah’s bottom lip starts to stick out. He lifts her onto his lap and offers her his last crisp. ‘We can always build another one.’

After lunch, Jemma insists that the children wait an hour before stripping down to their bathing suits and going in the water.

‘Lilah’s only just got over her bug,’ she explains quietly to Fitz, pulling a dog-eared copy of _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone_ out of her bag to placate their whining children. ‘I don’t want her swallowing a mouthful of seawater and being sick in the car going home.’

Fitz nods his agreement. The appearance of the book, clearly a family favourite, immediately silences Archie and Lilah’s protests. They both lean against Jemma’s side to listen, and as she begins to read, Fitz lies back on the soft sand, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face. He closes his eyes, and lets the familiarity of the opening passage wash over him.

_‘Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…’_

When he wakes, Fitz is alone behind the windbreak. He blinks blearily, and spits a few grains of sand out of his mouth before looking around for Jemma and the children.

He spots them down by the waves. Archie and Lilah are paddling through the surf and Jemma is sitting on the sand in front of them, a bright pink towel wrapped around her shoulders. Kicking off his trainers, Fitz pads down the beach to join them.

Jemma glances up as he approaches and grins. ‘Morning, sleepyhead. Did you have a good nap?’

Fitz shakes his head and sits beside her, taking the end of the towel she holds out to him and pulling it around his shoulders. They are so close their arms are touching, and for a moment Fitz is transported back to the morning of Lorelei’s enchantment when he’d stood by Simmons’ side in the lab and her hair had brushed against his neck. He shakes it off.

‘You know _Philosopher’s Stone_ always puts me to sleep,’ he says. ‘You couldn’t have chosen a more exciting book to bring?’

Jemma scoffs. ‘Oh please, it’s a classic. And, besides, the scene through the trapdoor is exciting enough for a three-year-old. I don’t want her having nightmares about giant spiders or soul-sucking demons _just_ yet, thank you very much.’

Nodding his agreement, Fitz gazes out at where the children are playing in the sea. Archie has a bodyboard with sharks printed on, and he keeps jumping on it, sending splashes of salt water flying into the air. Lilah, with her luminous pink goggles and bright orange armbands, is oblivious to this, kicking frantically with her hands while walking on the sandy floor in an imitation of her brother’s doggy-paddle.

‘Lilah would be in Gryffindor,’ he says decidedly. ‘Brave at heart.’

Jemma nudges his shoulder. ‘Fitz, please. We agreed not to sort them until they were eleven.’ There is a beat, then she adds: ‘Archie’s a Hufflepuff.’

Fitz grins. ‘And their secondary house is…’

‘Ravenclaw,’ they say in unison.

Jemma lets out a huff of laughter, and is about to thread her fingers through his when a shout from the water makes them both look up. Archie’s bodyboard is empty, swaying violently back and forth on the waves. For a moment, Fitz’s stomach lurches, and Jemma leaps to her feet, but then their son’s head emerges from the waves. He giggles, shaking his curls like a wet dog, before lunging for the board again.

Fitz lets out a sigh of relief, but frowns when Jemma stays standing.

‘Jemma?’

She is breathing heavily, her eyes fixed on the children. When Fitz reaches out a gentle hand to lay it on her leg, he finds that she is trembling. He tries again.

‘Hey.’

This time, Jemma blinks. She shudders and shakes her head.

‘Sorry.’ Abruptly, she sits back down and gives him an unconvincing smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ Fitz says with concern. He watches her fidget, her gaze still focused on the horizon, and gives in to the urge to stroke her hair. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘Yeah,’ Jemma says, but Fitz can hear the uncertainty in her voice. ‘Yeah, fine. I was just…’ She shakes her head again. ‘Do you ever…think about it?’

Fitz frowns. ‘About what?’

‘About…’ Jemma nods towards the ocean, her words trailing off. There is a far away look in her eyes that worries him. ‘I have nightmares about it still,’ she says. ‘Not often, mind. But often enough. Just when I think my subconscious has finally let it go, it pops back up again and I feel like it could have happened yesterday.’ She smiles sadly. ‘I know that must sound silly, to dream about _that_ of all things, after everything else we’ve been through together…’

‘No,’ Fitz says immediately. He has no idea what she is talking about, but Jemma is the bravest person he knows. Nothing she has nightmares about could ever be silly. He takes her hand, and covers it with both his own. ‘No, of course it’s not.’

Jemma gives him a grateful look and squeezes his hand. She hesitates. ‘Do…do you ever dream about it too?’

Fitz pauses, weighing up his options. He could lie to her, give some vague answer about nightmares and then pull her close to comfort her. He can imagine that this is how his future self would act, prioritising her well-being over anything else.

But when he looks back to her, taking in the vulnerability on her face as she gazes steadily back at him, the lie dies on Fitz’s lips. Instead, he takes a deep breath and offers her a truth he hasn’t even shared with his Jemma – the one he’d left behind.

‘I have nightmares about you jumping from the plane,’ he says. ‘After the chitauri virus.’

Jemma stares at him. Her eyes soften as his words sink in. ‘But that was so long ago,’ she whispers.

Fitz shrugs, unable to tell her that, for him, it had only been a matter of weeks since he’d had to face the terrifying possibility of living a life without her.

‘I know,’ he says carefully, ‘but it was the first time that I realised I could lose you.’

There is a silence, punctuated by the hush of the waves against the shore. Then, Jemma turns to him and tucks her head underneath his chin, her breath hot against his neck.

‘I love you so much,’ she murmurs.

There is a lump in Fitz’s throat as he hugs her close to him, pulling the towel tighter around her shoulders.

He’d all but forgotten about her jump these last few days, lulled by the security his vision of the future offered. Living here with her, his nightmares had felt redundant. But now he can feel his chest tighten at the memory of her standing on the cargo hold, hair whipped about by the wind, before disappearing into the endless expanse of sky.

He remembers the fear afterwards, the terror that had made him blind and deaf to anyone who tried to reach him to tell him what was going on. He remembers how it hadn’t abated until Jemma herself had entered his bunk, kissed his cheek, and called him a hero.

He looks down at her, her face still buried against his jumper, and is struck by the urge to assuage her anxiety, just as she had done for him.

Before he can change his mind, Fitz grits his teeth and staggers to his feet.

‘Fitz?’ Jemma asks in disbelief as he fumbles with his belt buckle. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

Lifting his arms, Fitz tugs off his jumper and drops it to the sand. The cold air, untampered by the sun in the sky, brings goosebumps to his skin.

‘Going for a swim,’ he announces, kicking off his jeans to reveal the trunks he’d found at the back of his underwear drawer that morning. He glances down at her. ‘Coming?’

Jemma gapes at him, but as he moves backwards towards the waves a delighted smile begins to spread across her face. She gets to her feet, just as the first wave hits the back of Fitz’s knees and he suppresses a gasp.

Fuck, it was _cold_.

But he can’t back out, not now that Jemma is shimmying off her jeans and struggling out of her shirt. By the time Fitz is up to his waist, she is standing on the sand in just her bikini, and the sight of her curves exposed like that is enough to make him lose his balance, stumbling on a rock and plunging under the waves. He emerges, spluttering and spiting salt water, to find that Jemma is wading towards him.

She makes a grab for his hands and jerks him upright, her teeth chattering.

‘Fuck,’ she breathes, ‘it’s _cold_ ,’ and Fitz bursts out laughing.

He kicks backwards, pulling her deeper into the sea, feeling the waves lap at his back. It is still cold, but now that Jemma is gripping his hands he feels infinitely warmer. She is laughing now too, in between her shivers, and suddenly she lets go of his hands and lunges forward to wrap her arms around his neck.

Fitz catches her, both their bodies weightless in the water, and starts to bob in a circle. Jemma’s feet leave the seafloor and her legs encircle his waist, squeezing gently at his sides. Somehow, Fitz finds his hands on her thighs, holding her steady. It is the closest they have ever been, and he can’t tell whether it is this or the freezing cold water that is making his own legs wobble.

But then Jemma kisses him, and Fitz’s feet find solid ground again. Her lips are cold and taste like salt, but they move tenderly over his, her hands cupping his cheeks.

Fitz closes his eyes and kisses her back, letting the buoyancy of the waves lift them until it feels like they are no longer tied to the earth but are living inside of a moment that is all their own.

They stay in the water longer than they should.

Archie struggles up onto dry land and runs, dripping, for the beach ball Jemma had blown up that morning. They bat it back and forth, making dramatic leaps into the surf when it is thrown too far out of their reach. Fitz floats Lilah on her stomach and shows her how, if she kicks with her feet at the same time as she paddles with her hands, she can swim like her brother does.

It is only when Archie’s lips turn blue and Lilah’s fingers wrinkle like an old woman’s that they clamber out of the water and make a break for the towels.

They dry each other off behind the windbreak, towelling every inch of wet skin and eking out every grain of sand from between toes. Jemma produces jumper after jumper from her bag and Fitz and the children pull them on gratefully.

Afterwards, they have supper in a fish and chip café on the seafront, munching on vinegar-soaked chips while debating the virtues of tomato ketchup versus tartare sauce. Jemma and Archie were on the side of tartare, Fitz and Lilah plumped for ketchup.

By the time they are walking back to the car, Lilah’s eyelids are drooping, and when Jemma gives him the nod Fitz swoops her up to carry her on his hip the rest of the way. She and Archie are both asleep within five minutes of leaving the car park, their heads lolling to one side of their car seats.

When Fitz glances to his side ten minutes later, he finds that Jemma is fast asleep too. Grinning, he turns his attention back to the road.

It had been, he reflects, a good day. A better day, in fact, than he’d had in a long time. And yet, as he drove down the winding Scottish lanes, Fitz couldn’t help feeling like something was amiss.

He glances at Jemma, snoring gently in the seat beside him. As he drives through a patch of late evening sun, the light illuminates her features, softening them so much that Fitz has to do a double take. In that moment, he could have sworn she was Jemma as he’d last seen her, bending over his near-unconscious body with an expression that had been equal parts exasperation and…what? He’d never got a good enough look to identify it.

The thought of that Jemma – _his_ Jemma, as he’d taken to thinking about her, to distinguish her from this Jemma who belonged with his future self – causes Fitz to feel a sharp pang as he realises what is wrong.

He has spent the whole day with Jemma – talking to her, touching her, _kissing_ her. And yet, now that it is over, all he wants to do is tell her about it, and see her eyes widen in surprise and her face light up with laughter.

Suddenly, even though she is sitting right beside him, Fitz finds himself missing her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "‘No, but really.’ He gazes down at her earnestly. ‘If you had to describe us, describe our…’ he licks his lips before saying the words, wanting to savour the taste on his tongue, ‘love story…how would you?’
> 
> He knows that this is an odd question and that it could just give him away to her, but he has to know now. The feeling that has been building inside him all week, growing with every kiss, every touch, every tender look, demands it. The memory of his Jemma, and the inexplicable way his heart is beginning to flutter when he remembers her, demands it.
> 
> He wants to know if she is right, and that it will all be worth it."
> 
> Fitz goes home.

By the time Fitz pulls up outside the cottage and switches off the ignition, it is twilight. The warmth of the sun has faded and there is a stillness to the air that makes him reluctant to speak, unwilling to break the spell of silence that has fallen over the car.

Glancing across at Jemma, who had woken as he’d passed by the village boundary, Fitz raises an eyebrow. Jemma looks into the rear-view mirror, the ghost of a smile passing over her lips as she takes in their still-sleeping children. Turning back, she gives him a silent nod.

Carefully, they both open their doors and get out of the car. As quietly as he can, Fitz unbuckles Archie from his car seat and bends down to lift him up, as Jemma does the same with Lilah. His son smells like the ocean, and his skin bristles with dried salt. He grumbles in his sleep, falling heavily onto Fitz’s shoulder as he lifts him into his arms.

Jemma balances Lilah’s weight in one arm as she unlocks the front door with the other, kicking it open with her foot. They climb the stairs together, splitting off as they reach the landing to head for the children’s bedrooms.

Archie doesn’t wake as Fitz lays him carefully on the bed, nor when he sits beside him to unfasten his sand-covered sandals. Momentarily, Fitz considers trying to dress him in his pyjamas, but decides against this when he sees how contentedly Archie is sleeping, his mouth parted to let out a little snore. He wouldn’t disturb a peace like that for all the world.

Instead, he settles for tugging a sheet up to his son’s chin and pulling the curtains to, before creeping out of the room on tiptoe.

‘Sleep well, little man,’ he whispers to the darkened room as he gently clicks the door shut.

He is about to poke his head around Lilah’s door to see how Jemma is getting on when he hears soft voices coming from inside. Hesitating, Fitz retracts his hand from the doorknob and turns to head down the stairs instead.

He unloads the car, replacing the wind break in the shed and leaving the buckets and spades next to the garden tap, ready to be washed out in the morning. Then, he carries the cool box through to the kitchen and climbs the stairs once more.

Lilah’s door is still open, and he can see the pale light from her beside lamp shining out from underneath it. Jemma’s voice floats towards him, hushed in tone and yet somehow animated. Bending his head closer, Fitz listens.

‘It was at that point that the boy and the girl realised that, somewhere along the line, they had made a mistake. Who was responsible for that mistake is neither here nor there, and at the time neither the boy nor the girl were thinking about who was to blame. All they could think about was the way the machine was growing hotter and hotter, the fumes from the bio-fuel rising higher and higher into the air…’

With a quiet huff of laughter, Fitz rests his head against the doorframe. He knows this story.

He nudges the door further open with his toe and sidles into the room. Jemma is kneeling by Lilah’s bed, holding the little girl’s hand in her own as she speaks. Lilah’s eyes are practically shut, her breathing low, but Fitz can tell she is just about awake still. She is hanging on for the end of the story.

Jemma glances up when she sees him and gives a fleeting smile.

‘The girl just had time,’ she continues, ‘to grab the boy’s hand and pull him underneath the bench before the engine blew. _Kapoow_!’

She makes the explosion noise softly, puffing out her cheeks and compressing her fingers before pulling them apart to show Lilah what happened.

‘The boy and girl were very sad that their experiment had gone wrong,’ Jemma says, her voice dropping to a whisper. Fitz watches as she moves her hand to Lilah’s forehead, stroking her flyaway curls gently as their daughter drops, finally, into sleep. ‘But they didn’t need to be. Because it was thanks to that adventure that they began a new one, an adventure that would take them further than they’d ever dreamed of going.’ She looks up, and meets Fitz’s gaze. ‘And that made it all worth it.’

There is a lump in Fitz’s throat as he smiles weakly back at her. She used the story of how they’d attracted Coulson’s attention, why he’d wanted them for his team in the first place, to lull their daughter into sleep. A wave of emotion rises within him.

Jemma tucks a cuddly toy underneath Lilah’s chin and switches off the light. Darkness envelopes them, and when Fitz hears her stumble against the bed in her search for the door, he holds out his hand. Jemma takes it gratefully, and lets him lead her out of the bedroom and into the half-light of the landing.

‘That was our story,’ Fitz croaks, as soon as Jemma has closed Lilah’s door. ‘You were telling her our story.’

‘Yes.’ Jemma is still holding his hand; she twists her palm so that their fingers are pressed together. She smiles. ‘She likes the ones with explosions best.’

Fitz chuckles: _of course she would_. Then, he stops.

‘So…do you tell her more stories about us, then?’ he asks, casually, although his heart is pounding.

As curious as he’d been over the last week about how he and Jemma had ended up _here_ – together, married – he’d been cautious about asking probing questions. For one thing, he had worried it might make Jemma suspicious, but he also had a lingering fear of knowing more, of filling in the gaps. Jemma’s anxiety on the beach and her talk of nightmares had only made him more afraid of what it was he was missing.

‘Of course, I do,’ Jemma replies, a little surprised. ‘She loves hearing stories about Mummy and Daddy. So does Archie. Naturally, there are some that I have to…modify, rather heavily, before I tell them. They’re still a little young for that kind of tragedy, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

She gives him a wry smile as she says this but her words feel like a kick in the gut. Fitz swallows hard, disappointment flooding his veins.

He’d had his suspicions over the week and had already guessed that their route to a loving, stable relationship hadn’t been an easy path. Yet before this moment he’d been holding out for proof that his assumption was wrong, and the sudden loss of that hope is crushing. He tries not to think about why.

‘Is that how you think about us?’ he asks after a pause. ‘As a tragedy?’

Even in the fading light, he sees the alarm in Jemma’s eyes as they widen and she quickly shakes her head. How desperate she is to reassure him only makes the ache in his chest worse.

‘No! No, Fitz, of course I don’t.’ Her hands move to clutch the front of his jumper, thumbing the material in a soothing manner. ‘I would never think that,’ she says gently. ‘But you have to admit, to an untrained ear, a lot of our exploits have the air of a tragedy. I don’t want our children getting the wrong idea about their parent’s love story.’

_Love story_. Fitz closes his eyes at the words.

‘How would you describe us, then?’ he asks, unable to stop himself.

Jemma laughs, softly. She tilts her face up towards his and brushes her nose against his own. ‘Oh,’ she murmurs, ‘we’re _indescribable_.’

The tone of her voice, so low and full of feeling, sends shivers racing down Fitz’s spine, but he forces himself to stay in the moment.

‘No, but really.’ He gazes down at her earnestly. ‘If you had to describe us, describe our…’ he licks his lips before saying the words, wanting to savour the taste on his tongue, ‘ _love story_ …how would you?’

He knows that this is an odd question and that it could just give him away to her, but he has to know now. The feeling that has been building inside him all week, growing with every kiss, every touch, every tender look, demands it. The memory of his Jemma, and the inexplicable way his heart is beginning to flutter when he remembers her, demands it.

He wants to know if she is right, and that it will all be worth it.

Jemma regards him with an odd expression then sighs. She bites her lip, her brows furrowing, and Fitz recognises that she is thinking hard. He waits.

‘It’s you and me,’ Jemma says eventually, ‘taking endless leaps into the unknown, time after time, because of the faith we hold in each other. That’s how I would describe our love story.’ She lifts her face to his and raises her shoulders in a simple shrug. ‘As a leap of faith.’

Fitz considers this for a moment, feeling his throat grow hot with tears.

‘You make it sound so beautiful,’ he says, thickly.

Jemma gives a quiet laugh, and reaches up to cup his cheeks with her hands. Fitz is thankful that the moon has finally risen high enough in the sky to shine through the landing window, because it allows him to see the way her eyes are shining with love.

‘Oh, Fitz,’ she says, ‘that’s because it _is_.’

Her hands move to the back of his neck, tipping his head gracefully towards hers. She kisses him with a gentleness Fitz has never experienced from her before, her lips soft and slow and loving. Her fingertips work backwards into his hair and her nose presses against his own, surprisingly cold.

Fitz leans into the kiss, the pattern her lips are tracing against his feeling familiar now in a way he’d never imagined they would ever be. His heart patters against his chest and his hands move to take her by the waist, skimming her hips to pull her close. Jemma smiles at this, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards, and she lifts herself onto her tiptoes. Her arms loop around his neck and she kisses him again, harder this time.

Their lips dance over each other, slowly at first and then Fitz feels Jemma’s pulse quicken beneath his touch as the pace of their kisses grows faster. Heat surges in his stomach, a sudden wave of desire flooding his veins, and, without thinking, he surges forward, walks her backwards until she is pressed against the wall.

‘Oh!’

Jemma lets out a startled squeak as her head hits a painting mounted on the wall, making it bang back against the plaster. Immediately, Fitz lets go of her to steady it with both hands. They both freeze, listening with baited breath, but there is no sound from either Archie or Lilah’s rooms. Somehow, by some minor miracle, the noise hasn’t woken them.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Fitz turns his attention back to Jemma. She has covered her mouth with her hands, but above them her eyes are sparkling. Gently, Fitz reaches up to remove her hands, prising her fingers away, and finds that behind them she is grinning.

A bubble of laughter rises in Fitz’s chest, but before either of them can start giggling he has ducked his head to kiss her again. His hand slips around the back of her head, pillowing it against the wall to make it more comfortable for her.

She uses her mouth to thank him, kissing him with a passion that elicits a small moan from Fitz’s throat. He clutches her tighter, admiring the way their bodies work together to create such pleasure, an equal partnership in this just as they were in everything else.

It is, he thinks with wonder, exactly as Jemma had described. As Fitz continues to kiss his best friend on their cottage landing, there is only one word that fills his mind, consuming his thoughts: _beautiful_.

It feels as though they have been kissing forever and Fitz can feel his lips growing hot and chapped. Despite this, he is reluctant to stop, so much so that when Jemma breaks away he lets out a soft whine, his fingers lacing with hers to stop her from going far. She grins at him, stepping backwards towards their bedroom.

‘Coming?’ she mouths, one eyebrow raised in invitation.

Fitz’s heart skips a beat, but then he is moving towards her and they are in their room and on their bed and he is learning what it means to be Fitzsimmons, in every sense of the word.

Afterwards, Fitz lies on his back, their sheets tangled between his legs. His entire body is humming and his skin feels like it is glowing, as if it will never cool down from the heat of Jemma’s touch. He smiles, and tips his head back on the pillow to look at her.

She is curved into his side, her neck and shoulders pearly white in the moonlight. With her fingertip, she draws lazy circles on his bare chest, smirking when it makes him squirm.

‘Does it tickle?’ she teases.

Fitz shudders as she runs her finger in a line down his belly. ‘You _know_ it does.’

Jemma chuckles, and lifts her head to kiss him again. Fitz melts into her, drawing comfort from how kissing her has become as easy to him as breathing. Jemma tucks her head into the crook of his neck with a sigh, resting her hand over his heart where Fitz imagines she can feel it beating out a settled, contented rhythm.

‘Was it alright?’ she asks, after a moment.

Fitz licks his lips, wondering how he could ever put it into words. ‘Jemma,’ he says, ‘that was _indescribable_.’

She snorts, and turns her head to press her lips to his neck. A deep warmth settles over Fitz and he wriggles his toes under the sheets.

Resting his head on top of Jemma’s, he finds himself looking beyond her to the room around them. His gaze falls on the chest of drawers at the bottom of the bed, with its display of photographs, each one a proud reminder of each twist and turn the two of them had experienced together.

The realisation hits Fitz suddenly, with less violence than a bolt of lightning but with just as much clarity.

He has loved this life. He has loved the cottage that he and Jemma have made their home in and how safe it makes him feel. He has loved how much he has enjoyed being thrust into fatherhood, how he had seen a piece of himself every time Archie or Lilah smiled. He has loved being with Jemma, being able to experience her touch and her tenderness unrestrained.

But the more Fitz thinks about it, the more he understands that he no longer wants to stay here. He wants to go home and build this life for himself.

He wants to wield the hammer, breaking through the rotten wall to create their open-plan kitchen. He wants to remember his daughter’s birth and the first time he had held his son in his arms. He wants to know where each scar on Jemma’s body has come from, and he doesn’t want tonight to be the last time he kisses them.

Most of all though, as he brings his gaze back to her, Fitz knows that he wants the chance to fall in love with Jemma Simmons and watch her fall in love in return.

As soon as this thought has crossed his mind, his eyes start to grow heavy. Feeling suddenly drowsy, Fitz lowers his head, sinking into the softness of the pillow gratefully.

‘Fitz?’

‘Hmm?’

He is having to fight to stay awake now, his limbs feeling like lead by his side. He is only vaguely away of Jemma pushing herself up onto her elbow and peering down at him. He blinks, blearily, and finds that he cannot focus on her face. She keeps shifting, between herself and someone ten years younger.

But then she touches his face and he can see her smile at him as though she knows something he doesn’t.

‘Take the leap,’ she whispers.

Fitz’s brow puckers, but he doesn’t have the time to ask her what she means. In fact, he is feeling so tired he can’t even be sure he has heard her right.

He closes his eyes, and the last thing he knows before he is pulled into the darkness is the feel of Jemma’s fingers, soothing him into sleep…

_The Bus, 2013_

‘Fitz?’

Someone is calling his name, but Fitz is not ready to be awake just yet. He turns his head and tries to fall back into the dream.

‘Fitz.’

It is Jemma’s voice but she does not sound worried or upset. If something was wrong with her or the children, she would do. Fitz does not have to wake up right now, he can rest his eyes for a few more minutes.

There is an exasperated sigh. ‘Fitz, I know you’re awake. Your breathing’s not even and your nose is twitching. Come on now.’

Slowly, Fitz is realising that something is wrong. Their mattress has grown hard as rocks under his back and somebody has removed his pillow from behind his head. He can no longer smell the soft warmth of Jemma’s perfume either, just something chemical and vaguely metallic.

There is a sharp jab to his side that makes him flitch. ‘ _Fitz, open your eyes_.’

And so, he does. The sudden brightness of the lights above him makes him blink them, rapidly, but then they widen as he takes in his surroundings. He is back on the Bus, back lying flat out on the metal floor of the hanger, back with-

‘Jemma,’ Fitz gasps, scrambling into a sitting position.

She is sitting on her heels beside him, her hands folded in her lap and an unamused expression on her face. A face, Fitz realises with a whoosh of relief, that is twenty-seven again. He has left the future behind and is back in his own time.

Jemma rolls her eyes, and Fitz recognises that she is wearing the same black and white jumper that she had been when he’d left – a week ago? A few moments? The timeline blurs in his mind and he can feel a headache begin behind his eyes.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she says. ‘Perhaps you were hoping for somebody else? Somebody rather more Asgardian?’

There is an edge to her voice that is vaguely familiar and it takes Fitz a moment to realise where he has heard it before. He has to hold back a snort when it dawns on him: it is the same jealous tone she had used in the café when her future self had accused him of flirting.

‘No,’ he says honestly. ‘The only person I wanted to see was you.’

His words seem to momentarily stop Jemma in her tracks and her eyebrows crease in confusion. Then, she purses her lips together.

‘Here,’ she says, motioning for him to come closer to her, ‘let me check your head. You hit the ground pretty hard.’

_You have no idea_ , Fitz thinks, but he obediently scoots over to let her place her hands on him. Her fingers skim his brow, running backwards through his hair and prodding at his crown in search of a lump. Her touch makes him shiver, in a way it hadn’t before.

To distract himself from this, Fitz asks, ‘what happened with Lorelei? Is the team okay?’

‘The team is fine,’ Jemma reassures him, letting go of his head to peer deep into his eyes. Fitz lifts his chin for her, knowing she is now checking him for a concussion but unable to stop his heart from jumping even so. ‘And Lady Sif has taken Lorelei back to Asgard, as a prisoner.’ She gives him a faint smile. ‘You fixed the collar perfectly in the end.’

Fitz returns the smile, even though he can barely remember what he’d done with the collar in the first place. It feels like such a long time ago that he’d held the alien metal in his hands. A lifetime, even.

As Jemma presses gently to the bruise he can already feel forming around his eye, Fitz can’t help feeling mildly disappointed. Not because he’d wanted to see Lorelei again; far from it. He could live the rest of his life without even hearing her name again and be perfectly happy.

But a part of him had wanted to question her about what had happened to him. He’d have liked to have known if his theory that the effect of her powers combined with the blow he’d received from Coulson had been what transported him into the future had been correct. She’d have been unlikely to have given him a straight answer, but he would have liked to have known if it had been real.

But then Jemma finishes her examination and pulls back with a satisfied nod, and Fitz realises that none of that matters. The only thing that had ever mattered was right in front of him, just as she had been all along.

‘Well, you’re all still in one piece,’ Jemma announces, ‘but you’re going to have quite the shiner in the morning.’ She runs her fingertip along his cheekbone, a concerned look in her eye. ‘You bruise like a peach, Fitz.’

‘You’re right,’ Fitz agrees, ‘I do.’

Taking her wrist, he pulls her hand away from his face and gets to his feet. When Jemma starts to protest that he shouldn’t be getting up so soon, he cuts her off by holding out his hand to help her up. She eyes him warily, as if she is trying to figure him out, then takes his extended hand.

It takes a little more effort than Fitz had expected to heave her to her feet, although he tries not to let it show. Already, he is missing the muscular definition his older self had had. He makes a mental note to start working out more. Push ups in his bunk, maybe.

A layer of dust from the cargo hold floor covers his cardigan sleeves so he brushes himself off. When he looks up again, he finds that Jemma is still watching him, her hazel eyes softened. It quite takes his breath away, her looking at him like that.

Fitz swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Oh!’ Jemma blinks and shakes her head. ‘Nothing. Nothing. I’m just glad you’re you again, that’s all.’

‘Yeah,’ Fitz says with feeling. ‘I am too.’

For a moment, they can only stare at each other, before Jemma clears her throat pointedly.

‘We probably should be getting back to Skye,’ she says, glancing over her shoulder to the lab and the med pod beyond. There is a pink hue to her cheeks that hadn’t been there a minute ago. ‘She’s been asking about you and I’d like to draw another blood sample from her, even though I think she’s as suspicious as Miss bloody Marple…’

She continues to talk, but Fitz’s gaze is being drawn to her lips and he is no longer listening.

He is not an idiot. He has read enough science fiction novels and watched enough episodes of Doctor Who to know that time is a delicate thing. If his vision of the future was real, then anything he does from now on that is different to the timeline that had created it in the first place could destroy it. He will be risking it with every breath he takes.

And yet, even as he starts to think about that, even as the fear of losing it starts to rise in his chest, he sees Jemma. He sees her smile at him across the mattress, her face lit up by moonlight.

_Take the leap_ , she had told him and the memory of her voice makes Fitz brave.

‘Jemma,’ he says, and she stops talking.

With a deep breath, Fitz steps forward, takes her face in his hands and kisses her.

Jemma starts, understandably, under his touch, but Fitz is gentle, brushing his thumb over her cheek as he fits his mouth to hers. He does not want to press too hard, eager to show her the same care she had offered to him. It only takes a heartbeat for Jemma to relax and kiss him back.

Her hands come up to his chest, her fingers sinking into the folds of his cardigan as she arches forward. Slipping his hand around her head to cradle the back of her neck, Fitz feels himself start to grin against her lips.

Kissing Jemma like this feels familiar, and yet at the same time it is something completely new.

He kisses her one last time, softly and paying generous attention to her bottom lip, before pulling away. His heart is pounding against his chest and he is itching to feel the press of her body against his own, but more than that he wants to see her face.

Jemma’s eyes have closed and she is swaying slightly on her feet, her breathing ragged. To steady her, Fitz places his hands on her elbows. Slowly, she opens her eyes and he can see how bright they are in the harsh fluorescent light.

‘What,’ she asks him, ‘was that?’

Fitz shrugs. ‘Call it a leap of faith,’ he says simply.

‘Huh.’

Jemma rubs her lips together, and, as if he has left a taste of their future on them, she starts to smile. She looks up at him, almost shyly.

‘Alright then,’ she says, her voice soft and a little excited. ‘Let’s go.’

By his side, Fitz feels her thread her fingers through his own. Her palm fits against his like the missing piece of a puzzle, the last part he’d needed for everything to fall into place.

When Jemma steps forward, Fitz follows, perfectly happy to let her lead him onwards into their wonderful unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i began posting this fic, we didn't know when aos was going to end. now, as i post the last chapter, we do. i've been writing for this show, and obviously fs in particular, since 2014 and it's been a huge part of my life since then. i've loved every story i've written for aos and i'm looking forward to writing a few more at least!! thank you for taking the time to read just this one <3
> 
> i hope you've enjoyed this fic! thank you for all your lovely comments and encouragements.


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